


All But Broken

by NiriKeehan



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Blackwall has issues, Character Study, Cullen Rutherford Has Issues, Cullen Rutherford's ideology on mages, Discussion of suicidal ideation, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I had an endgame ship in mind but I’m not sure that’s the endgame ship I’m gonna get, I was emotionally compromised by Blackwall’s storyline and I’m still dealing with it, Love Triangles, Lyrium Addiction, Mage-Templar Dynamics (Dragon Age), Moral Ambiguity, Mutual Pining, Political Debates, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Romance, Secret Relationship, and the fallout of such things, philosophical debates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:08:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28002906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiriKeehan/pseuds/NiriKeehan
Summary: With Corypheus defeated, Inquisitor Thalia Trevelyan must make a decision — what happens now to the Inquisition and the power it built? Her dilemma is complicated by the tumultuous relationships with two men in her life: Blackwall, struggling with the darkness of his past revealed, and Cullen, his own demons still hidden away from the light.
Relationships: Blackwall | Thom Rainier/Female Inquisitor, Blackwall | Thom Rainier/Female Trevelyan, Blackwall/Female Inquisitor, Blackwall/Female Trevelyan (Dragon Age), Cullen Rutherford/Female Trevelyan, Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford
Comments: 11
Kudos: 8





	1. Glass Houses

**Author's Note:**

> I’m painfully new to the series, but I couldn’t keep my hands off these characters. Please forgive any continuity issues or mistakes in the lore.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two men, both alike in dignity.

Inquisitor Thalia Trevelyan opened her eyes to find Cullen inches from her face, smiling.

“Huh—? _Aaah_!” She flailed her hand at him.

He ducked easily. “Well, good morning to you, too.”

“Morning? Already?”

Thalia rolled away from him in bed, squinting against the bright light. The stone walls of Cullen’s quarters shone in the sun, and through the window came the hustle and bustle of Skyhold down below as it shook off its slumber. How did this happen? She remembered visiting Cullen in his office the previous evening, and the wine bottle they opened, one of many gifts from Thedas’s grateful citizenry, and discussing troop movements late into the night.

She sat up, auburn hair falling uncharacteristically loose to her waist. There were the clothes strewn about the floor, and beneath the sheet she was naked. Yes, it was all coming back to her now, including how hard she had laughed when Cullen hit his head on the climb up the ladder.

Thalia groaned and flopped back down next to him. “I have got to stop accepting your invitations for nighttime chats about military strategy.”

Cullen propped his head up on one hand as he gazed down at her. “Oh, really? I don’t believe I heard any complaints last night.”

He certainly hadn’t. Thalia felt her face grow warm. The color rose in Cullen’s cheeks as well, and they looked away, both letting out self-deprecating chuckles. It was times like this that her heart swelled for him. When she met him she had thought him so worldly and experienced, but it was clear that when it came to their relationship, they were stumbling through the same dark corridor together.

“It’s not that,” Thalia said, regaining her composure. “It’s that I’m the one who has to do the walk of shame the next morning. People will talk.”

“I assure you they’re already talking,” Cullen said, drawing a lock of hair away from her face. “Especially with the war over, they have little else to focus on. I’m telling you, one of us ought to move in with the other, put the rumor mill to rest.”

Thalia shook her head, the way she did all the other times he suggested it. “Not until after my parents visit. My mother would faint dead away if she knew I was ‘sharing company’ with a man out of wedlock.”

“The pious sort?” Cullen cocked an eyebrow.

“You’ve no idea. If I hadn’t been a mage, she would have made me become a Chantry sister. Or a Templar.”

Cullen let out a laugh. “I would have loved to see you training to join the Order.”

Thalia wouldn’t have. For all the praise heaped on the Templars by her parents, she remembered them as cold, distant sentinels, prison guards in plate mail. The ones she’d known in the Circle of Ostwick could be arbitrarily cruel too, especially with girls. She could still see the faces of the ones the older female apprentices warned about, how it was safer never to be alone in a room with them.

None of this would amuse Cullen, who still mourned the destruction of the Order at the hands of red lyrium and Corypheus. Instead, she put on her slyest smile. “I’d never have made it. I’m too short.”

“I think I could have whipped you into shape,” Cullen teased, leaning closer.

He planted a kiss on her temple, then her cheek, moving down toward her jaw. Thalia let out a contented sigh, sliding her arms around his neck, her fingers finding his fine blond hair. If she wasn’t careful, they’d both be late to the day’s duties.

“I’m sure you could have,” she whispered in his ear, “but right now I’ve got to find my clothes.”

Cullen groaned. “Come on. I thought that was a clever line.”

“Oh, it was,” Thalia said as she tried to slide out of his grasp. “You’re definitely getting harder to resist.”

He pulled back, watching her with his hazel eyes, which always looked so keen, and yet somehow weary. Stubble darkened his jaw; he was always a day or two late for a shave. His beauty was, at times like this, breath-taking. A giddiness filled her, as it often did, as if she had gotten away with something. She kissed him coyly on the lips as a consolation prize.

He reached up, lightly tracing the intricate tattoo that hooked down from her right brow and around her eye. “You know, you’ve never told me why you got this.” He smirked. “It’s very bold, but that suits the Herald of Andraste, doesn’t it?”

Thalia froze, the joy ebbing. He really didn’t seem to know. “I guess it’s not something the Circles in Ferelden and Kirkwall did?”

Cullen’s brow furrowed, and he shook his head. “What do you mean?”

“We all had to get them,” Thalia said softly. “In the Ostwick Circle. The phylacteries weren’t enough, apparently. The Templars wanted to be able to identify mages by sight, if we ever ran away.”

Cullen pulled his hand back, as if the tattoo had burned him. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice faltering. “That sounds — quite terrible.”

Thalia swallowed. “It was.”

They moved away from each other, sitting on opposite sides of the bed and fishing through the piles of clothes in a thick silence that made Thalia uneasy. She had fully dressed and started weaving her hair into its usual braid when Cullen spoke again. He was on his feet by now, sauntering around the room, having donned everything but for the outer pieces of his armor. As he fastened a gauntlet around his wrist, he asked, “So, what’s on the agenda for today?”

His tone was light, and Thalia hoped that meant the strange tension between them had dissipated.

“Well, first is a meeting with Leliana and Josephine, which will certainly last several hours. Then I’ve got to continue preparing for the parental entourage. You know, the usual.”

The irony of winning the war and closing the Breach was that the Inquisition was busier than ever. Now they had to tackle the long, hard task of rebuilding an entire continent, as most nobility in both Ferelden and Orlais looked to the Inquisition for guidance and leadership. They had loyalty from Empress Celene, and tacit support from Queen Anora… though Josephine suspected the latter wouldn’t last. There was also a slew of loose ends to wrap up before Leliana took up her new position as Divine.

In the middle of it all, she’d received a letter from her mother. Lady Cecilia and Bann Oswald Trevelyan had had nothing to say to their rogue mage daughter after the attack on the Temple of Sacred Ashes, nor during the long hard fight to build up support for the Inquisition. Not even when the final battle against Corypheus had been imminent, when both her death and the destruction of the world was more likely than not. Now that the danger had passed, the letter arrived, heaping praise on Thalia, calling her a modern day prophet, a visionary, a hero — and, in between the lines, an unmarried youngest child of opportunistic nobles. When Thalia had been confined to the Circle, this hardly bothered her parents, because who wanted a mage to procreate? But since the Circles were gone, and Thalia was _de facto_ leader of southern Thedas, her breeding stock had risen considerably.

Her mother and father would be arriving at Skyhold in a week’s time, and Thalia intended to make it plain just how well she was getting by without their input.

Cullen grimaced. He was looking forward to their visit as much as she. “I do wish you’d just told them about us.”

“Trust me,” Thalia said, pinning up her braid with the hairpins that lay scattered on the bedside table, “it’s better to ease them into the idea.”

“Is it that I left the Templars?” Cullen asked.

Thalia shook her head. “It’s not. Do, in fact, remind them that you used to be one every chance you get.”

“And that will be more impressive than that I lead your army?”

“Like you said,” Thalia replied, “the pious sort.”

He paused. “Even if — surely they would know — if I’m no longer a Templar… that I must be a lyrium addict?”

Thalia startled so badly the hairpin in her fingers went tumbling to the floor. “You’re not a _lyrium addict_.” Even as she said the words, her chest felt tight. “I mean — you haven’t been…” She struggled to find an appropriate verb. “ _Indulging_ lately, have you?”

“No,” he said, to her vast relief.

“Well, there you have it.”

Cullen gave her a gentle look. “I appreciate your faith in me, dearest, but there’s no point skirting the issue. Even if I’ve weathered the worst of the withdrawal, it would be foolish to think I’ve beaten the habit. It’s something I’ll have to be vigilant about, probably forever.”

She took a slow breath. “You’re right, of course. I’m sorry.” She liked to think he was strong enough to have simply shrugged off the effects of the substance that chained all Templars to the Chantry, but he was only human. Being complacent about his struggle would not serve, especially if at some point he needed help again.

Still, it pained her to think he defined himself in such terms. _Addict_ had a dreadful connotation to it, conjuring images of emaciated waifs lounging in dark alleyways, their eyes glassy and sunken. To hear it told, Cullen’s former colleague Samson had once suffered such a fate, before he had been recruited by Corypheus. Desperate men do desperate things. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think Mother and Father have the foggiest idea how dangerous lyrium really is.”

If they did, they’d be none too pleased to hear she was courting a man with such dismal prospects. She could practically hear her mother’s shrill voice: _a common Fereldan soldier, riddled with vice? Did I raise you with no sense at all?_

Thalia bit the inside of her cheek. _No, Mother, you didn’t even raise me. You dumped me in the Circle and let them handle it._

“But,” she added, “it would probably be better if you don’t mention the lyrium stuff.”

Cullen sighed. “Fine.” He shrugged on his long coat, the one with the fur-lined collar made for the chilly days and chillier nights that Skyhold experienced, situated in the heart of the Frostback Mountains. “I don’t like that I’ll be withholding so much from your family, but I understand the utility of it.”

He approached her as she finished with the last of her bun, leaning down to plant a kiss on her mouth. He straightened, staring down at her with palpable tenderness. “Maker, I love you.”

The confession caught her off-guard. They’d exchanged the sentiment a few times, usually whilst in the throes of passion, but hearing it now, by the unglamorous glare of morning, had gravity to it. And what had seemed frivolous when the threat of Corypheus still hung in the air now seemed possible. They had built Skyhold and all that it represented, and were now faced with the prospect of building a future here. Together.

“I love you, too,” she said, a stupid smile crossing her face.

Cullen smiled back, one of his dashing yet self-conscious ones. He blushed again and looked at his boots. Thalia stood and gave him a hug, her head tucked against his collarbone. He pulled her close and they stayed that way for awhile, until at last she felt Cullen take a deep breath.

“There’s something else I’ve been meaning to discuss with you,” he said. “Regarding the future of Thedas. I haven’t been sure whether the time is right, but I think it would be better to bring it up sooner rather than—”

“Commander?” came a voice from below, through the trap-door entrance. He liked to quip that his commute to work was short, but having one’s quarters directly above his office offered a lot of disadvantages also. “Commander, are you up there? I’ve got today’s duty roster, and it needs your signature.”

“One moment, Harding,” Cullen called back. He shook his head, gave Thalia a kiss, and whispered, “Forgive me, we’ll have to continue this another time.”

“At least it’s only Harding,” Thalia whispered back. She was on good terms with the scout, and knew she didn’t gossip. “If it was anyone else, I might be stuck up here all day.”

* * *

Thalia left the rampart outside Cullen’s office, skipping down the stone steps until her boots hit the muddy ground. She took a breath of pine-fresh air and took in Skyhold’s courtyard. Soldiers practiced swordplay against wooden dummies stuffed with straw; medics leaned over the sick outside their tents; merchants stood in stalls hocking their wares. Everywhere, Thalia saw life.

That was the main difference from before the end of the war. For so long Skyhold felt like a temporary respite from a relentless onslaught, as easily lost as Haven. Now, it seemed as though everything could — and _should_ — be here to stay.

She intended to head up to Skyhold’s Main Hall, where Leliana and Josephine were gathering in the war room. (Not much use for _that_ name anymore, was there?) Instead, her feet moved her farther away, into the lower courtyard. She always told herself it was the horses she wanted to check on every time she walked by the barn, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

She had been better about it lately. Far too often she had left Cullen’s office, steering toward the barn to see Blackwall, but that was before she and Cullen had admitted their feelings for each other. And before she had learned Blackwall wasn’t really Blackwall.

 _Thom Rainier_. The name still felt foreign on her tongue, and somehow wrong. He’d told her he preferred to keep the name of the Grey Warden he’d impersonated, that it was a nobler identity than his own. Thalia had obliged, but she had never again been able to look at him and see Blackwall, the knight who had become her protector at the start of the war. Rarely had she gone into the field without him by her side. Blackwall had shielded her with his impressive size and strength, knowing that a mage in combat was always vulnerable. Blackwall had spent evenings with her in this barn, giving her sage advice when she felt hopelessly out of her depth. Blackwall had taken her to the Storm Coast to show her the grave of his mentor, and stood beside her in the rain, quietly grateful for her presence.

It was Blackwall who had appeared in her quarters that night, taken her into his arms, and kissed her the way she’d always wanted to be kissed. It was Blackwall who had awakened something in her, a hunger she had dared not acknowledge while in servitude to the Circle.

Then he had told her to break his heart, because she was too bewitching to resist. It had struck her as craven and weak, that he would lay the blame with her — was it her age, her status as Inquisitor, that she was a mage? — and then force her to do what he could not. Confused and angry, she’d done as asked and sent him away, not knowing the terrible truth, nor all the lies he had concocted to win her favor up until that point.

These days she looked at him and saw Thom Rainier, a stranger.

Thalia stepped into the barn, the shadow deeply dark after the brightness outside. She blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and thought of how stupid this was. She hadn’t even properly spoken to Blackwall since the night of the victory banquet. She thought that might have finally loosed his tongue, but he remained as aloof as he had been in those weeks before the final battle. He’d stood with his rigid chevalier’s posture, arms crossed against his chest, grey eyes burning with all the heat of the fire in the hearth behind him. He’d never stopped looking at her that way, even after everything that had happened, but still he said nothing of consequence. He hadn’t in some time, not since that final proclamation one afternoon in this very barn, when they argued about the fate of the Inquisition. _I just know you could shake the world to its foundations if you willed it._

She had never understood whether he meant this as a compliment, or a warning. 

The barn seemed deserted, to her solace and chagrin. She was about to leave when she heard movement behind a stack of hay bales. Blackwall emerged, carrying with him a heavy crate, piled high with beautifully carved and painted wooden toys. She had watched him make some of them herself, especially a certain rocking horse, which she spied sticking out of the top. She’d loved watching his progress, marveling at how deftly he worked with his hands.

“Blackwall,” she said to the man who wasn’t Blackwall.

He looked up, and when their eyes met her stomach flip-flopped, the way it always did. She hated that he still had this much power over her, when even by her own volition she had moved on, leaving him behind.

“Inquisitor,” he said with a nod. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He had the accent of a Free Marcher peasant, like the farmers who tilled her father’s fields. Yet every time he spoke he possessed an authority that compelled her to listen. He might sound uneducated, but his deep voice usually possessed valuable insight that escaped her. She had once chalked it up to a long life’s experience traveling the continent and serving the Grey Wardens. Then she had learned the truth of it: when one stared into the Fade, sometimes the Fade stared back. It made a man more attuned to the darkness in the world.

“I just came by to check on the horses,” Thalia said, and hated herself.

Blackwall’s expression remained unchanged, though for a moment she thought she saw his jaw clench under his long black beard. She suspected it concealed a handsomer man beneath, and once thought about teasing him into a shave. Now she understood why he wore it, the same reason he allowed his hair to grow past his collar: he hid more than good looks.

“You know where to find them,” he said curtly, moving past her and out the barn door.

Mentally cursing, Thalia followed. He was so tall, with such a long gait, it took several brisk strides to catch up. “All right, I lied,” she said, a little breathless. “It’s you I wanted to check on. How are you?”

“Alive,” he grunted. If not for the Inquisition’s intervention, he might still be dangling from the gallows in Val Royeaux. He’d never entirely forgiven her.

“Fantastic, me too.” Thalia let out a wry laugh. They had fought side by side against Corypheus and the Archdemon, a fate only an infinitesimal fraction survived, and this was all they could say to each other? She nodded toward the crate in his arms. “What are you doing?”

“Taking these to the refugee camp,” Blackwall replied. “There’s little kids down there. They could use a spot of joy in their lives.”

Even before the war ended, Skyhold had been flooded by wave after wave of civilians displaced by the fighting. The Inquisition was caring for them as best they could, and relocation efforts were under way, but due to the sheer amount of them, many would likely be living in temporary tents for months outside Skyhold’s walls.

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Thalia said, a warmth spreading through her chest. Blackwall was full of moments like these. Despite casting himself as a cruel, apathetic man, he often thought to demonstrate compassion when others failed to. It was a major reason why she had not been able to view him as irredeemable and leave him to his fate in Orlais.

“Well, I’ve certainly no use for them,” Blackwall retorted, deflecting the compliment with honed precision. “They’ll be going where they’re wanted, that’s good enough for me.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “Unless you’d like to take your pick, for when you and the Commander settle down.”

She wasn’t sure what shocked her more, his words or the snideness to them. “Excuse me?”

He let out a weary sigh. “I ain’t blind and I ain’t stupid, Inquisitor.” They had reached the courtyard’s outer door, which Blackwall pushed open with a burly shoulder. He walked through the base of the watchtower, toward the long, chilly stone bridge to the mountains beyond.

Thalia darted after him, struggling for something to say, but he spoke again before she could.

“I’m happy for you, truly.” He didn’t sound happy. He paused in the still darkness of the tower, away from the eyes of the guards, and looked down at her. He lowered his voice. “He’ll be better for you than me.”

He might as well have reached into her ribcage and yanked out her heart. They had never talked about it, not since she had visited him in the Val Royeaux prison. Even then, he had refused to meet her eyes through the bars of his cell. _This is why I told you we couldn’t be together_ , he’d said, although at that point he had been pointing out the obvious.

She hadn’t cared, too frantic to save him. And too off-balance from the presence of Cullen, who had rushed to her side to assist. It had been an early sign of Cullen’s devotion, overstepping his duty as her commander because of her distress. Certainly, Blackwall technically fell under Cullen’s purview as a member of her field team, but he had sensed the disgraced knight was more important to her than a regular bodyguard. It had been so dizzying — not just the consequences of Blackwall’s deception, but seeing two men for whom she felt so deeply mired in the crisis. One had been drowning; the other helped her pull him out of the water.

She had been too cowardly to confess to either of them.

 _And Blackwall knew about Cullen. How long has he known?_ Maybe even before she did. He had a way of picking up on things others missed. Thalia pressed a shaking hand to her mouth. “Is this why you’ve been so distant since — since Val Royeaux?”

Blackwall let out a laugh, as mean-spirited and callous as the person he once must have been. She hated that sometimes she could see the silhouette of that man in him, he who had ordered the slaughter of an entire family for no reason but coin. Instead of answering, he turned and walked out of the tower.

“Blackwall,” she called, pursuing him onto the bridge. She couldn’t let him keep evading her like this. The cold winds rose around them, tugging wisps from her bun and sweeping his hair away from his neck. She raised her voice, lest she lose that to the air too. “ _Thom_ , stop!”

He whirled on her, anger flashing in his eyes. “I told you not to call me that. Not ever.”

His voice was stronger than hers. She could hear it echoing off the mountain pass around them. Undeterred, she stormed up to him, holding her palms out wide. “Why not? It’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s my bloody name, and hearing it on your lips makes me wish you’d let me hang.”

She reeled; he might as well have slapped her. “Please tell me you don’t mean that. Not after everything I went through to save you.”

“Aye, there’s the rub,” Blackwall said, shaking his head. “I hate to be the one to break this to you, milady, but not everything is about you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m freezing my balls off out here.”

He set off along the bridge. Numb from the cold and the sting of his words, Thalia followed in silence. On the other side, the mountainside evened off into a summit where hundreds of tents stood beside the road to Haven. Cook fires abounded, as did huddles of people, looking haggard and exhausted. Thalia put up her hood as she walked. These days, she was so famous, she would be mobbed if anyone recognized her, and any chance of continuing her conversation with Blackwall would be lost.

Mother Giselle and some of her Chantry sisters stood near a central clearing amid the tents, tending to the masses. Blackwall marched to her with his bounty. Thalia hung back. She had her reservations about Mother Giselle. Every conversation felt a bit like Giselle was trying to convert her; Thalia had not been the devout and enthusiastic Herald of Andraste the clergy had wanted. It surprised her that Blackwall had acquainted himself with Mother Giselle. She had always thought him to be about as heretical as she when it came to the Chantry and its beliefs.

Mother Giselle thanked him profusely and set her sisters to distributing the toys. Before long a small crowd of children had gathered and were taking away their new prized possessions, cheering and beaming. Even as it melted Thalia’s heart, Blackwall remained by Mother Giselle’s side, stoic as stone. At last the children began to disperse, and Giselle scooped up a handful of silver coins from a nearby offering bowl, holding it out to Blackwall.

“A little gift, for all you have done for these children, ser,” she said in her Orlesian lilt.

Blackwall waved her off. “No need, Mother, but thank you for the thought.”

“Are you certain? The road to Haven is bleak these days, and dangerous. It would do a man well to have some coin in his pocket.”

“I’ve gotten by on less before, and I’ll do so again. Don’t worry about me, Mother.”

Thalia frowned. She knew the rebuilding efforts were well under way in Haven, but last she checked they had not needed much in the way of additional help.

Blackwall bade goodbye to Mother Giselle and strode back toward Thalia. He didn’t look at her, but didn’t blink when she fell in step beside him. For several seconds, the only sound were their boots crushing the frosty ground.

“Why are you going to Haven?” she asked as they stepped onto the bridge.

“I’m not going to Haven.” He looked straight ahead, at the towering walls of Skyhold above them.

“But Mother Giselle just said—”

“I’m passing _through_ Haven. When I leave Skyhold.”

His meaning was so preposterous it took her a moment to fully grasp it. “Hang on, you can’t just _leave_.”

“Is that so?” At last Blackwall glanced at her, narrowing his eyes. “What are you going to do to keep me here, I wonder? Throw me in the dungeons?”

He would like that, she realized. It would be closer to the fate he thought he deserved. “When I freed you, it was on the condition that you use your freedom to atone for your actions. By serving the Inquisition.”

“Aye, and I believe I’ve completed that sentence. The war is done. By rights that means the Inquisition should be too.”

His words stunned her. “Are you serious? Look around you, Blackwall. You saw all those refugees. They’ve been left with nothing. Their towns need to be rebuilt, their livelihoods. All across Thedas there’s been devastation unlike anything in a thousand years. We can’t dissolve the Inquisition. We’ve still so much _work_ to do.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, milady. Crowns build towns and livelihoods, not the Inquisition. Those people should be relying on their sovereign, or their arl or teyrn. It’s not your job to be their monarch.” His voice became tinged with melancholy. “No matter how much you want it.”

“I don’t want to rule,” Thalia retorted, but even as she said it she didn’t feel sure. “It’s just that things are still so unstable right now. We’re _needed_. It’s not even safe to withdraw troops yet, what with the remnants of the Red Templars and Venatori still about. Cullen says—”

“Cullen will find another war for you to fight. Men like him always do.”

The arrogance of his statement took her breath away. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I meant no disrespect. I’ve merely spent most of my life around soldiers, and he’s one to his bones.” Blackwall shook his head. “Soldiers are no use in peace time. Some will do anything for a battle to fight. Some will even invent reasons for one.”

“That… that’s not— you’re wrong.” Thalia swallowed. What was it that Josephine had once said about Cullen? _He does sometimes resemble the man with a hammer to whom everything appears as a nail._ “You don’t know him at all.”

“And you do, I suppose.”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Thalia huffed. “Intimately, as you’ve already so rudely pointed out.” She was grateful the bridge was deserted at this time of morning.

Blackwall snorted. “I’ve known a fair number of women intimately in my time, Inquisitor. Doesn’t mean I’ve been privy to everything running through their pretty heads.”

He took a long look at her, and she felt her cheeks grow as red as her hair from the intensity of his gaze. For a moment she was back in her quarters that night. She had climbed the stairs to find him leaning against the arch to the balcony, her stomach doing somersaults. He must have snuck in when no one in the Main Hall was looking, with intentions for her that she had quietly encouraged but doubted he would ever act upon. She thought that finally she was experiencing the sensual steps toward love, instead of just reading about them in a copper-shop novel like the kind Varric wrote, locked away in her sleeping cell at the Circle. She thought she had learned what it meant to be desirable, not just to a man, but one so worldly and wise.

Now she felt embarrassed and ashamed. She’d been playing a game to which she didn’t know the rules. She hadn’t known Blackwall was a flame, and every time she brought her hand too close, he would burn her. Worst of all, he had warned her, and she hadn’t listened. Wasn’t she to blame for this as much as he? Must she force him to stay and watch her carry on her life with someone else?

“Where will you go?” she asked, tears pricking her eyes.

Blackwall let out a sigh. “Not sure yet, to be honest. I’ve been here and there on the continent before. I know my way around.”

The vagueness of the answer frightened her. “You won’t— I mean, will you...? You said, you wished I’d let you…” She couldn’t say the word, could only see the noose swinging in her mind.

“Bloody hell. No.” He stopped walking and turned to her in the shadow of the watchtower. “I plan to avoid Orlais, if that’s your meaning. And I’ve lived with myself for a long time now, I ain’t got designs to stop. I’ll go where there needs work done, just as before. For Maker’s sake, dry your eyes.”

He reached up and with one gloved hand brushed the tears from her cheek. Even though the heavy cloth, she could feel the warmth of his fingers, and the way they lingered. She stared up at him, and he stared down, and in the heat of his gaze all chill left her. After a long moment he turned away, cursing. He leaned heavily against the parapet, staring at the chasm down below. Thalia sniffled and scraped clean the rest of her face with her palm.

“Just take care of yourself, all right?” Blackwall said, his shoulders squared. “Times like this can be dangerous, when the world reorders itself after everything falls apart. You might not know who to trust, even if you think you do.”

Once more, he spoke in riddles. Annoyance crept in past her grief. “Are you talking about Cullen again?”

“Might be I am. Not only him, though. Friends will just as soon stab you in the back if they want what you’ve got. And you’ve got the most power of anyone in Thedas at the moment.”

She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. “I thought you liked Cullen. I thought you respected him.”

“I do. Don’t mean I haven’t heard things.”

Thalia had no idea where this was coming from. “What _things_?”

“Soldiers talk when their superiors ain’t around, Thalia. You’re the Inquisitor _and_ the Commander’s girl, of course you haven’t heard them.” He spoke softly. “Unkind things. Regarding Cullen’s opinions on mages.”

“His _opinions_ on _mages_?” Where they even speaking the same language right now? “He doesn’t have any opinions on mages.” No, that was wrong. Hadn’t he said something when they first met, that he’d once judged them too harshly and without cause? And she’d asked at some point, if her being a mage bothered him, and it didn’t. “He was a Templar. They were trained to hunt and kill mages. Of course he was told we were dangerous, but he knows it’s not true _now_.”

Blackwall glanced at her over his shoulder. “That version’s a tad different from the one I heard.”

“Oh, really? Are you planning to tell me _your_ version, or just keep on hinting at these wild tales you claim you’re hearing?”

Blackwall sighed and pushed off from the wall. He leaned over her, growling through his teeth, “Might be best to keep your voice down this close to the ramparts, milady.” He tilted his head skyward, where two guards patrolled atop the outer wall. “You want to discuss these things, might be better to do so later, in a less conspicuous place.”

Thalia let out an incredulous breath. Had he taken to hanging out with Leliana in the rookery, wanting to employ all this cloak and dagger nonsense? “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where this less conspicuous place would be.”

He was close enough for his beard to brush her cheek. It had surprised her, how soft it was, the night he kissed her. She stared up at him, waiting with apprehension — he was getting to her with all this conspiratorial posturing, as much as she hated it. “If you’ll meet me in the usual place—”

“Maker’s breath, there you are.”

Blackwall took a hurried step away, and if Thalia could melt right into the parapet at that moment, she would have. Through the portcullis strode Cullen, concern lining his face. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Josephine and Leliana are waiting. Where on earth did you disappear to?”

Cullen reached her side, and his gaze hardened as it slid to her companion. Despite all he had done to help Blackwall in Val Royeaux, Cullen had been icy toward him ever since. Thalia suspected he disagreed with her judgment to release him outright, though he had never said so directly. His nod was terse. “Ser Rainier.”

“No ‘ser,’ I’m afraid,” Blackwall said stiffly. “They certainly stripped me of that title, even in absentia.”

“My mistake,” Cullen said, equally stilted.

“He and I were just at the refugee camp,” Thalia cut in. “Making sure they were sufficiently supplied.”

Cullen gave her an odd look. “That’s very kind of you, but I’ve got some of my men seeing to that already.” His brow furrowed. “It looked like you were having a bit of a conversation.”

“Indeed, Commander,” Blackwall said. “I was informing the Inquisitor of my decision to leave Skyhold.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Cullen said, in a tone that suggested the opposite. “Well, you’ve been a valuable asset in these trying times. It will be a shame to lose you.”

He offered Blackwall a hand to shake. Blackwall took it, and Thalia thought she might die from the humiliation of witnessing the two men size each other up.

Then Cullen seized Blackwall by the wrist and wrenched him closer.

“Seriously, though, Rainier,” he said, his voice light but lethal, “if you think I’m just going to let you waltz around here alone with the Inquisitor, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Cullen,” Thalia said, startled. “Let him go.”

He did not let go. If anything, his grip tightened. “What were you trying to do to her?” Cullen pressed.

Her surprised turned to horror. “Cullen, _please_. We were just talking.”

“What were you trying to _say_ to her?”

In a show of great strength, Blackwall tore himself free. He stepped back, a sheen of sweat shining on his brow. He rotated his shoulder and winced. “We were discussing men in glass houses, Commander, and that they ought not throw stones.”

He bowed to Thalia, bid them both good morning, and vanished into the yard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can sure thank COVID-19 for one thing. The quarantine allowed me to mainline all three Dragon Age games in a matter of months. I played them in a weird order: Inquisition, then Origins and DA2. So imagine my surprise after my mage Inquisitor, Thalia, ended the main plot line in a relationship with Cullen — just for me to go back in time and have my Warden run into him at the Tower in Ferelden, on his knees and ranting about killing all the mages. Then I moved from Origins to DA2, only to run into him again as Knight-Captain of Kirkwall. As Hawke, I tried to stay on his good side as I ferreted away apostates from the Circle, all the while dealing with his veiled threats about going after my sister, light comments about lobotomizing all the mages, and sad ruminations that being made Tranquil would have been a mercy compared what would happen to them if they openly rebelled. 
> 
> And I wondered if he was really being as honest about his opinion on mages in Inquisition as I thought. 
> 
> This is an attempt to bridge the gaps I saw in Cullen's character between the three games, as well as pull on some narrative threads I really wanted to see resolved in Inquisition, but didn’t… particularly the blistering love triangle my Inquisitor found herself in with Blackwall and Cullen that the game just did not have any scripted responses for. I haven’t played the DLCs except part of Jaws of Hakkon, so maybe some of these questions already get answered, but the ideas have been nagging me for months, and I just finished DA2, so here we are.
> 
> As always, thanks to Monocytogenes for beta reading and giving me hideous plot ideas even though she isn’t even in the fandom... yet. ;)


	2. Oh, Grey Warden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

“Why did you do that?” Thalia demanded.

Cullen gave her an innocent look. “I didn’t do anything. I was just asking questions.”

“You _hurt_ him.”

“I did no such thing.” Cullen let out a short laugh. “Trust me, if I’d wanted to hurt him, you’d know. What was he on about, anyway?”

Thalia sighed, pressing her fingers to her temples. She was suddenly fighting a headache. “I don’t know. He’s been acting strange recently.”

“ _Recently?_ He hoodwinked us for months. I’d call that prolonged strange behavior, at the least.” Cullen slipped an arm around her shoulder. “Come, let’s walk and talk. If I don’t deliver you to the war room soon, Leliana is going to send out scouts.”

“Well, that won’t do.” Thalia let him lead her through the watchtower and into the courtyard, though his arm dropped to his side as soon as they emerged, which irked her. Maybe he was right — it seemed like people were finding out about them anyway.

As they ascended the steps toward the Main Hall, Thalia scanned the area. It was the usual rabble: Inquisition soldiers and workers, visiting dignitaries from half the world over, and no black-bearded knights to be seen. “You don’t have to protect me from him, you know. Blackwall’s not dangerous.”

They cleared the first stairway and ascended the second, stepping aside a trio of Orlesians in their idiosyncratic fashions, including face masks Thalia had always considered a bit ghoulish. Cullen waited until they were out of earshot before speaking, his brow creased with worry. “He isn’t Blackwall, Thalia. Why are you still calling him that?”

 _Shit_. She hadn’t meant to use that name, but now it was too late to conceal it. “He asked me to.”

“He _asked_ you to?” Cullen shook his head and looked away, across the lower courtyard to the mountains beyond. “By the Maker, maybe it’s better that he’s leaving. He’s as deluded as he is deceitful.”

“That isn’t fair,” Thalia said. She didn’t like this sudden shift in Cullen, the person she had always seen as thoughtful and empathetic, even about former colleagues working for their enemies.

He halted on the landing outside the Main Hall. “No, what he did to you wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to any of us. He presented himself as a Grey Warden, and when we could have used the abilities actual Grey Wardens possess, instead of admitting the truth, he lied to make himself look better.” Cullen glanced around surreptitiously, and motioned her into the castle’s empty foyer. There he put his hands on her shoulders, his voice low but urgent. “Have you thought about how much damage that could have caused our mission? How far it could have set us back, maybe even given Corypheus the upper hand?”

Thalia hadn’t. She had been too wrapped up in the implications for Blackwall — the charges against him, the consequences of his actions, who it meant he truly was, and whether he was as evil as he thought himself to be.

Her voice, though quiet, was just as heated. “But it didn’t set us back. We had Hawke and Stroud and—” Why was she defending him like this? Everything Cullen said was true. “He— he just wants to be a better person,” she finished meekly.

“Don’t we all,” Cullen snapped, dropping his hands to his sides. “Yet I’ve never had the luxury of leaving who I used to be behind just because I don’t like him.”

Thalia felt off-kilter. _Men in glass houses…_ “What do you mean? Like, with the lyrium?”

Cullen gave only the tiniest hesitation, but she caught it. “Yes. And certain — other things I did as a Templar.”

“What other things?”

She waited for him to explain. She had wanted to dismiss Blackwall’s suspicions out of hand, but now Cullen himself seemed to be giving credence to them. If he was braver and nobler than Blackwall, as he claimed, he would look her in the eye and tell her.

His gaze skittered to the floor. “Things long in the past. That I no longer wish to dwell on.”

Anger flickered inside her _._ “Just like Blackwall.”

“Just like Thom Rainier. There’s a difference.”

“If there is, I can’t see it.” Thalia huffed and stormed into the Main Hall. She had no time for the circles in which they were talking, nor Cullen’s hypocrisy. The Main Hall was as lively as always, with fires crackling in its many hearths and breakfast food spread on the long tables. Thalia strode coolly to the table where Varric sat eating, grabbed a biscuit and a piece of bacon from the serving platter, and kept walking.

“What, not even a hello?” Varric called after her. As Cullen gave chase, he added, “Whoa there, Curly. What’s gotten into you both? Lovers’ spat?”

Maybe trying to hide their relationship really was a waste of time.

Thalia made it into the corridor outside the war council room before he caught her. Thankfully Josephine was not in her office as they passed.

“Rainier’s still manipulating you,” Cullen was saying. “Trying to get you to believe he’s the version of himself he wants to be.”

Thalia whirled to face him and laughed. “I doubt it.” Cullen hadn’t been there to witness Blackwall distributing the toys he had made to the refugee children. If that had been done simply to posture toward her, it had been an exceedingly long con. “If all he wanted was to stay in my good graces, why announce he’s leaving?”

“So that you would realize how indispensable he is to you, and convince him to stay,” Cullen said at once, with a weariness that surprised her.

Thalia raised her eyebrows, incredulous. “That would be terribly underhanded of him.”

“And yet plausible, don’t you think? I’ve plenty of experience with his sort. They’ll do and say anything to your face to ingratiate themselves to you, when Maker knows what they’re scheming behind your back.”

“Where on _earth_ did you meet such dastardly people?” Thalia demanded.

“Kirkwall. I was second-in-command of the Templar Order there, don’t forget. You see the worst the world has to offer in a position like that.”

“You mean mages,” she said, stunned. “The mages who were plotting the rebellion.”

“Not only them, but — yes,” Cullen admitted, his gaze faltering. “I know you see them as heroic freedom fighters, but things spiraled out of control in Kirkwall because neither mages nor Templars were willing to sit down and have an honest conversation to solve real problems. Too many of them were wrapped up in their own ambitions, and what they might stand to gain from their schemes.”

“Well, Black— _Rainier_ isn’t scheming anything.”

“Like he didn’t scheme to murder an entire noble family when he was in the Orlesian army?” Cullen asked pointedly. “I never got the impression he was just doing that for fun.”

Thalia put her face in her hands. She must look so naive to him. How could she explain the faith she maintained in Blackwall? She thought of all the times he could have turned on her and didn’t. Certainly Corypheus or any of his lackeys would have paid precious coin to have the Inquisitor delivered to him on a silver platter. Perhaps Thom Rainier would have taken advantage of that opportunity, but Blackwall hadn’t. That must count for something.

She was trying to figure out a way to say all this when Cullen said, “And I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

Thalia’s heart stopped. She peeked at Cullen through her fingers and tried to maintain her composure. “Oh? How’s that?”

Cullen set his jaw. “Like he wants something he can’t have.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Thalia retorted.

“Am I?” Cullen asked, studying her closely. “Am I being ridiculous?”

Guilt shot through her. _Does he know too?_ How transparent had she been this whole time to everyone around her?

No, that was impossible. No one knew about that night but her and Blackwall. Cullen only suspected. And if he refused to disclose his past indiscretions to her, why shouldn’t she do the same to him?

“Yes, you are,” she said, lifting her chin. “You sound jealous.”

Cullen let out a barking laugh. “Of Rainier? Not likely.”

“Then maybe we should stop talking about him!”

“I would, but you keep harping on him like he’s the second coming of Andraste. I wish I’ve overheard you saying about me half the things you say about him.”

 _He is jealous._ This was her fault. If only she’d stayed away from Blackwall the way she had been doing the last few months. She _did_ still have feelings for him, and now they were going to wreck the first real and good relationship she’d ever had. What she felt for Blackwall were remnants of childhood fantasy, the stuff of fairytales, where all maidens were beautiful and all knights true. Yet if she admitted that to Cullen now, she doubted it would be her he’d take out the brunt of his anger on. She turned away from him, pressing her hands to her mouth and looking out the hole in the corridor that still hadn’t been patched.

Minutes passed in silence. She could feel Cullen hovering behind her, and hear his breath catch now and again as he wanted to speak but the words failed to materialize.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said at last, his voice full of regret. “I don’t want to fight.”

Thalia closed her eyes. _He loves you. Don’t ruin this._ “I don’t either.”

Cullen came up behind her and put his arms around her. She turned and hugged him, and the warmth of his embrace felt safe.

He kissed her forehead. “I just want you to be careful. There’s a lot of twisted people out there. They’ll look at you and see an opportunity, just like Rainier did.”

 _Funny. He said the same thing about you._ Thalia kept her mouth shut.

The door to the war room creaked open, and out peeked a head veiled in the dusky violet robes of the Chantry. “Am I interrupting something?” Leliana asked. She had a way of maintaining a serious expression yet conveying a smirk in her voice, and both were in full force.

Thalia felt Cullen stiffen and begin to pull away, but she held fast. Over his shoulder, she said, “He’s courting me.”

“Oh.” Leliana blinked. “Yes, that’s been obvious for quite some time.”

* * *

The meeting was boring — the leadership in Orlais was still hounding them to set a date for the Exalted Council, and it was decided once again to stall until they had wrapped up more of their field missions. They were still debating how to respond to a request for aid from Orzammar in the wake of several earthquakes. After that, Thalia checked on the guest quarters being prepared for her visiting family, as well as with Skyhold’s cook, who would be serving them meals. Thalia’s mother was such a fussy eater she figured she’d just have to leave the cook a tome of instructions.

She slept alone that night, too tired, she told herself, to discuss troop movements with Cullen. Or anything else, for that matter. As for the cause of their row, if she went back to ignoring Blackwall, the mess would go away, like it did before.

And so would he.

The next day passed in much the same way, until the afternoon. Thalia emerged from Skyhold’s Main Hall and found herself gazing down toward the stables against her will. Blackwall hadn’t said anything about when he was leaving, but the offer to meet her in “the usual place” could only be conditional. If she simply didn’t show, he’d take the hint, pack up, and be on his way.

This seemed like the most obvious solution, as much as thinking about it made her heart hurt.

She turned and went back inside, to seek out Dorian and the tome on Tevinter magic he’d promised to show her. He only chided her a few times when it seemed like she wasn’t paying attention.

That night she found it hard to sleep. She stared at the ceiling and thought about all the things Cullen had — and hadn’t — told her about his time as a Templar. He’d had choice words about his Knight-Commander in Kirkwall, but not much about the mages themselves. He’d supported her decision to ally with the mages against Corypheus, but was that just because he’d viewed her as his superior? No, surely not. He was her advisor as well. If he’d had an opinion, he would have told her.

Wouldn’t he?

The next morning, Thalia sat down across from Varric at the breakfast table in the Main Hall. “Sorry about the other day. I was out of sorts.”

Some eggs and sausage were sitting untouched on Varric’s plate, and he was bent over a book of parchment, scratching at its surface with a quill. “Oh, now she wants to talk, right as I’m getting to the good part.”

“Still working on — what was it? _Hard in Hightown_?”

“Nah, that’s already gone to my publisher. Now I’m working on something as of yet untitled, about a scrappy redheaded mage who’s chosen to save the world. She has one fatal flaw that’s sure to be her downfall, though. She can’t admit to her friends when something is wrong.”

Thalia winced. “Remind me never to go adventuring with a novelist again. He’ll exploit too many of my secrets.”

Varric put down the quill and leaned against the table. “All right. Out with it.”

“So, Cullen and I are— are—”

“Romantically linked,” Varric finished for her. “Yeah, I noticed. Thanks for telling me, by the way.”

“It didn’t seem appropriate to just announce to everyone,” Thalia protested. “Especially not with the war still on. He commands my army, and he’s my advisor, and...”

“Right. Well, I’d say congratulations, but not everything seems rosy.” He cocked his head at her.

She took a deep breath. “You knew Cullen in Kirkwall, didn’t you?”

Varric’s eyes narrowed. “We crossed paths a few times over the years. Not sure that really counts as knowing him.”

“I’m just curious,” Thalia said. “About what he was like back then.”

Varric placed the quill in his book and closed it. “Look, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, your Inquisitorialness. Curly’s a good man. He’s handled leading an army to keep the world from exploding more gracefully than I’d expect from anyone. Back in Kirkwall, things were different. He had different responsibilities, and was beholden to different people. I never thought he had it in him to defy the Templars, but when push came to shove, he did. He refused to go along with the Right of Annulment his corrupted commander wanted to carry out against the mages, and helped us defeat her.”

“Really?” Thalia’s heart soared. That sounded exactly like what she would expect from Cullen. Selfless, heroic, standing up for what was right. Why didn’t he want to speak of this?

“Yeah. It was a sight to see. I was always kind of rooting for him to recognize the error of his ways.”

“The — what?” Her smile faltered.

Varric sighed. “He was harder to deal with before then. I mean, to be fair, me and Hawke and the others were doing some shady stuff we probably shouldn’t have. Lots of sneaking around, helping apostate mages escape the Circle. Hawke’s sister was an apostate, you know, so it was kind of personal for us. And the Templars at the Circle in Kirkwall seemed especially bad, Curly excepted. There was one piece of work who was going around, petitioning to make all the mages Tranquil just by default.”

“ _What_?” Thalia gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. Growing up in the Ostwick Circle, nothing had been more terrifying than the Rite of Tranquility. If she was too emotional, too outspoken, or worse, too critical of her treatment by the Templars, the possibility of being made Tranquil was always there, hanging over her head. “That’s horrible. Cullen opposed that, surely.”

Varric hesitated. “Well.”

“What do you mean, ‘well’?” Thalia demanded.

“I don’t remember his exact words. Something about being glad it wasn’t necessary.” Varric used his fork to stab at his eggs, quick to avoid her eyes. “But that the idea had merit.”

Thalia felt cold. “Cullen thought making all mages Tranquil had _merit_?”

“I told you, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. This was a long time ago. I don’t want to hold the guy to a bunch of things he said way back when.”

“A _bunch_? What else did you hear him say?”

Varric shook his head. “At this point I feel like I’m gossiping. Maybe you ought to ask him about this stuff, if it concerns you so much.”

“I tried,” Thalia said softly. “He said he wanted to leave it all in the past.”

“Probably because he’s ashamed,” Varric said. “If he had any reservations left about mages, I’m sure you changed his mind.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Thalia echoed, but wondered.

* * *

As dusk fell, Thalia found herself outside the stables. She had been disguising her intentions by visiting the vendors set up in the lower courtyard, but the merchants were now closing up for the day. Standing outside the barn pacing would surely draw attention.

 _You can just walk away,_ she reminded herself.

Like all the times before, her boots took her inside the barn.

She found Blackwall standing with Horsemaster Dennet, stroking a horse’s mane. She was a large black mare, strong and beautiful, a gift from one noble or another. But like most of the offerings to the Inquisition, her use to Thalia was limited.

“She’s gentle to a conscientious rider but fierce when she needs to be,” Dennet was saying. “You run into trouble on the road, she’ll stand by you. She was born to be a warhorse.”

“Won’t be too much of that, I hope,” Blackwall said, patting her neck. “But it’s nice to be prepared.”

“Are you giving away one of my horses, Dennet?” Thalia asked, stepping between the two men. She used a joking tone to hide the pit that had formed in her stomach.

“Absolutely not, Inquisitor,” Dennet said. “Sold her, fair and square. At quite a generous price, too.”

Thalia cocked an eyebrow at Blackwall. “Is that so?”

He nodded. “Roughly the equivalent of my Inquisition salary, milady. Minus a few traveling expenses.”

 _He’s making sure he owes us nothing._ By the cook fire behind them, next to where Blackwall laid out his bedroll, had appeared a knapsack, saddle bags, and other supplies.

“When are you leaving?” Thalia asked, straining to keep her voice light.

Blackwall kept his attention on the horse. “Tomorrow.”

Thalia swallowed hard. “So soon?”

“Aye.”

The tension in the ensuing silence was palpable.

“I’ll, uh, just let you say your goodbyes,” Dennet said, clearing his throat. “You have any questions before you leave, you seek me out in the morning.” He strolled out of the stables, none too slowly.

At last Blackwall straightened, turning to her. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“I wasn’t either.” Thalia’s palms felt clammy. If she’d just waited another day, she would have missed him. It would have been just like last time, when she’d sought him in the barn to find it deserted, Blackwall long gone for Val Royeaux to reckon with his past. “You wanted to talk. In a less conspicuous place, you said.”

“I did.” Blackwall glanced around, then motioned with his head. “Follow me.”

Hearting pounding, Thalia let him lead her into the upper courtyard. She glanced uneasily up at Cullen’s office as they passed, where he was surely still hard at work.

At last they reached the door to Herald’s Rest, which he pulled open wide for her. A gush of warm air met her, along with the din of half the keep meeting in the tavern during their off-hours. Thalia gave Blackwall a strange look, but went inside.

Blackwall found them an empty table in the back. “Sit. I’ll get us a drink. What will you have?”

Thalia sat, more confused than ever. “Ale is fine.” She preferred wine, but if Blackwall insisted on buying, she didn’t want to demonstrate expensive taste, especially since he’d just forfeited everything the Inquisition had paid him for a horse.

Blackwall disappeared through the crowd to the bar, and Thalia sat with her hands folded, looking around at all the faces she recognized. There was Iron Bull drinking with Krem and the others in their company; there was Sutherland and his mates; there was Maryden the bard, tuning her lute. A few of them waved, and so did a few strangers. Thalia returned the greeting nervously.

Blackwall reappeared, setting down two frothing steins and sitting across from her.

“You have a peculiar notion of _less conspicuous_ ,” she said quietly, taking a sip and frowning as the carbonation tickled her nose.

“Anyone asks, we’re just having a quiet drink to bid me farewell,” Blackwall said. “It’s called hiding in plain sight. More effective than risking discovery in some clandestine location.”

“Yes, well, I suppose you’d know,” Thalia mumbled.

If such a statement wounded him, he had the grace not to show it. He removed his black gloves and wrapped a hand around the beer stein before taking a hearty swallow. Thalia watched his hands. Worker’s hands, her father had called hands like that: large and calloused and nimble. She grabbed her stein with her own thin, soft fingers and focused on her ale.

They sat in silence, avoiding each other’s gaze. Across the tavern, Maryden cued up another song on her lute, a melancholy ballad accompanied by her breathy, delicate vocals.

 _Oh, Grey Warden  
_ _What have you done?  
_ _The oath you have taken  
_ _Is all but broken…_

Blackwall scoffed. “I hate this bloody song. Seems like she plays it every time I walk in.”

Thalia was certain Maryden had written it after word had gotten out that the Inquisition saved Blackwall from hanging in Val Royeaux. Hearing it for the first time had put Thalia’s heart in her throat, but it was the gossip around the tavern that had angered her into walking out. _I knew the family he killed, had business with them… He deserves worse than he’s getting… I saw him just walking free… I was certain of his character the moment I saw him — villainous to the core._

The talk had faded eventually, yet the song remained, with just enough vagueness around the details to give Maryden plausible deniability, but who else could have inspired it?

_Can you be forgiven when the cold grave has come?_

Thalia glared in Maryden’s direction, and thought she caught the woman smirking. She’d never forgiven Thalia for siding with Cullen and refusing to go after a rumor-spreading rival of hers. Of course she’d see the Inquisitor sitting down for a drink with Thom Rainier and decide to play an old favorite.

 _Ally or foe?  
_ _Maker only knows..._

“It’s not you,” Thalia said sourly. “If she could manage to write more than a handful of songs, we’d hear fewer repeats.”

Blackwall let out a chuckle. “I doubt that, but thank you for saying so.”

She liked hearing him laugh. It happened so rarely that she felt like she’d achieved something special when she could get him to do it. Her stomach fluttered, and she took a deep swallow of ale to settle it.

“So. Let’s talk.” _Better not prolong it. Get it over with, and let him go on his way._

Blackwall stared into his drink. “You sure you want to hear this?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Aye.” He sighed. “I just didn’t think it would be on the last night. I don’t want to leave things badly between us. Not after everything I…” He took a sip of ale and coughed. “Think I’ve done that enough.”

 _It’s too late for that_ , Thalia thought. What else could he leave her with but a string of heartbreaks? “You wanted to tell me what you’ve heard about Cullen’s past.”

“I ain’t sure it’s all in his past. That’s why I’m concerned.”

“Oh?”

“If a man carries certain attitudes with him long term, it’s hard for him to ever put them down completely.”

Thalia leaned forward, her voice hardening. “Attitudes that would enable him to kill a family for money, for example?”

“You misunderstand my meaning, milady. There’s a difference between being dishonorable and being prejudiced. The person I used to be, he would have sold out anyone if the price was right. Orlesians, Fereldans, Free Marchers… you.” He caught her gaze and her heart thudded. “I believed in nothing. It wasn’t personal.”

Thalia swallowed thickly.

“To hear it told, for Cullen it is personal. I ain’t sure what exactly happened, but—”

“I know what happened in Kirkwall,” Thalia cut in. “I talked to Varric; he was there. It’s not as bad as you’re thinking. In the end, Cullen stood up for the mages who were rebelling.”

Blackwall shook his head. “I’m not talking about Kirkwall. I’m talking about before that.”

Thalia blinked. She hadn’t known there was anything before Kirkwall.

“Awhile back, around the time of the last Blight, there was an incident at the Circle Tower in Ferelden. I never found out the details, but Cullen was there. He wanted to kill all the mages in the Circle.”

A chill went down Thalia’s spine. “What? _Why_?”

“He said they were too dangerous. All of ‘em hiding abominations inside. They ain’t like normal people, don’t think or feel the same.”

She wanted to tell him that was absurd, that Cullen would never believe or say those things. But he would, wouldn’t he? Varric had confirmed it. Of course making all mages Tranquil would seem reasonable to someone like that, if his previous stance had been to eliminate them entirely.

“He… but he… couldn’t have actually _done_ that, could he?” Cullen had been significantly younger at the time of the Blight, far from a leadership position. She was sure she would have heard about a whole Circle being wiped out, even back then. Mages confined to their towers had little to do but gossip, after all.

“Luckily not. Or at least not entirely. The Knight-Commander refused, but Cullen was insistent. Supposedly it drove him to the brink of madness.” Blackwall grimaced at the table. “Not long after, three mage apprentices turned up dead, and Cullen was quietly transferred to Kirkwall.”

Thalia’s eyes narrowed. “Are you accusing Cullen of murder?”

“I’m just telling you what I heard.”

“But it’s a hell of a statement, coming from you.” Mage apprentices were almost chiefly children, anywhere from five or six to their late teens, when they were allowed to do the Harrowing. Given the difference in age between her and Cullen, Thalia would have been an apprentice herself at the time they were discussing.

“I know it.” Blackwall sighed. “Look, I ain’t here to judge a man for the skeletons in his closet. That would be hypocritical of me. It’s the other part of the tale that’s worrying.”

More worrying than going mad and murdering children? “How so?”

Blackwall met her eyes. “Cullen wasn’t allowed to act on the worst of his impulses because he didn’t have the power. But he’s got that now, doesn’t he?”

He did. Cullen was arguably the second most powerful person in Thedas at the moment. He shared the privilege with Leliana and Josephine, to be sure, but if push came to shove, what chance would spies and nobles stand against well-trained soldiers armed with heavy steel?

“You’re wrong about him,” Thalia said. “And even if you weren’t — he’d never defy me.”

“You sure about that, Inquisitor?” Blackwall asked. “Power and the desire for more does funny things to men’s heads. I should know.”

“I thought you committed your crimes for wealth.”

“Wealth and power are two sides of the same coin, milady. It’s rare you can pursue one without the other, or care to.”

Thalia thought back to the palace in Val Royeaux, when the Inquisition had attended Empress Celene’s ball. She’d brought Blackwall along for extra muscle, but had been surprised by how comfortable he seemed at court in his dress uniform, surrounded by plotting nobles. She’d only understood later why it seemed like nothing new to him, and why she’d witnessed an Orlesian courtier remark that he looked familiar.

Thom Rainier had played the Game, and it had cost him everything.

“What did you hope to gain?” Thalia asked. She had never asked, not through all of it, accepting the narrative as presented to her: Blackwall was a fraud, and a killer with no scruples, no cause — a man who could be bought if your purse was heavy enough. Of course it was more complicated than that, but even trying to overturn that stone had been too painful, terrified as she’d been of seeing the ugliness beneath.

Blackwall let out a tired sigh, looking out out the tavern’s leaded windows at Skyhold beyond. “Something like this, perhaps. A castle, a title. Servants doing my bidding and calling me ‘milord.’ If the coup attempt had worked, I could have had all that and more. I _craved_ more. Most people get a little taste of power, and it consumes them. I’ve experienced it myself, and I’ve seen it over and over.” His eyes found hers, full of quiet intensity. “Until I met you. Whole kingdoms laid down at your feet, and you never seemed to want it. Never seemed to realize how much authority you wield with just one hand.”

The anchor in her palm tingled. “Is that why you told me that I could shake the world to its foundations if I willed it?”

“You can. It frightens me. No one person should have that much power. The realm is lucky you’re gentle.”

He said so reverently, but his words scared her too. She’d never thought about it that way, not really — the larger fight had been too all-encompassing. What was earthly power when there was a giant hole in the sky, and a looming future of global death and ruin? Now that the apocalypse had been avoided, what could she do with the Inquisition if she wanted to? If she truly wished to defy the Exalted Council and declare herself Empress of Thedas, who exactly could stop her?

“Is that why you’re leaving?” she asked. “Are you afraid of feeling that lure again?”

Blackwall shook his head, looking at her with a terrible sadness. “I’m afraid for you, Thalia. I’m afraid you’ll go down a road I can’t follow. Maybe Cullen will lead you there, maybe he won’t, but I’ve already seen the start of it. Power corrupts, and not even you are immune.”

It took her a moment to understand. She inhaled sharply, pressing her hands flat on the table to steady herself. “You mean _you_. What I did to save you.”

“I told you as much at the judgment,” Blackwall said. “I know it hurt, but you had to hear the truth. You had no right to interfere with Orlesian law, but you did it anyway. Because you could.”

For a moment she was back on her throne in the Main Hall, looking down at Blackwall, shackled and on his knees, her stomach roiling as Josephine haltingly announced his real name. Determined not to betray her feelings to the public, she had put on her most ruthless Inquisitor voice, but it had all been for show. She had never intended to do anything but free him.

Thalia shook her head, a lump forming in her throat. “But I couldn’t just let you _die_.”

“Why not? You could have done nothing. It’s the easiest thing in the world to do.”

“Because I—” _Love you_. She caught herself, but she worried he somehow heard it anyway. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to appear calm. “I needed you. The Inquisition _needed_ you.”

He gave her a forlorn smile. “I’m one soldier, milady. You have a whole army.”

“And none of them are you.”

“You let personal feelings interfere with statecraft. That’s abuse of power. And I fear it will only get worse, because you have such a big heart.”

His own hand inched closer to hers, the one that possessed the anchor — the terrible twist of fate that had turned her from a lowly mage from Ostwick to the Herald of Andraste, to the Inquisitor, to the savior of the world. When his thumb brushed her pinky he hesitated, then placed the his palm over hers, engulfing it. He gave her fingers a small squeeze.

The feel of his warm skin jolted her like an electric shock. No matter how inappropriate this might look, she couldn’t pull away. She gripped him tightly, fighting tears. “So what should I do, then?”

“That I can’t tell you. It’s too late to take back the past, and I know you don’t want to let the Inquisition go. It’s become who you are.” He sighed. “I just hope that when all the cards are down and you have to choose, you’ll do what’s right.”

He turned her hand over and drew his fingertips over her palm and down the length of her fingers, giving her tingles of a different sort.

Thalia bit her lip. “But what if I’m different from all the rest? What if I really am the only one who can fix things, and without me everything falls apart?”

Blackwall snatched his hand back, leaving hers open on the table. The anchor sparked and glowed like an ominous emerald flame.

“If you truly believe that, my dear,” he said softly, “you are already lost.”


	3. Wicked Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who can you trust, if not your closest advisors?

Thalia finds herself running along a country road, searching for Cullen. She stumbles across a carriage toppled onto its side, surrounded by soldiers. Blood stains the grass crimson, the air shrill with the shrieking of children.

She spots Blackwall standing beneath a tree, dressed in Orlesian finery. She runs to him, calling his name.

“Who?” he says, tossing a coin purse in the air and catching it, again and again.

“You’re killing them,” she cries.

“If I didn’t, someone else would,” Thom Rainier says, laughing. “That’s how the Game is played.”

Trembling, she backs away. “What have you done with Cullen?”

“I saw him in the trees,” he replies. “If you run, maybe you can catch him.”

The pines rise above them, blotting out the sun. She spies a shock of blond hair, a fur-lined collar disappearing behind a trunk. The coin purse in Rainier’s hand is actually a stone, black as pitch. His smile is wicked. His hands drip with blood. “ _Run_.”

She darts after Cullen. Rainier draws his arm back and throws. The stone arches over her head, hitting the air in front of her, punching a hole in the world. Everything shatters in shimmering green light.

She stands in the Circle Tower in Ostwick, still and deserted. The mages are all gone, but their belongings remain. She passes doorway after doorway, books overturned on the ground, furniture smashed and scattered. Identical rooms spin by. _Why is the tower a circle?_ whispers someone from her youth. _So that we go round and round and never make it anywhere._

Thalia calls Cullen’s name, but only echoes greet her. She ascends one staircase, then another. She knows he’s here somewhere. He’s a Templar; they stand guard over all her kind. The circular hallways make her dizzy. The air is heavy with something damp and primordial.

At last she reaches a doorway cast in a red hue. Cullen stands in the middle of the room, back to her, his sword drawn. “Cullen, what are you doing?”

The sword is wet, glistening in the dim light. She gasps. Three small bodies in apprentice robes lay scattered on the floor like matchsticks. He turns to her, his eyes glowing an unearthly vermillion. Red lyrium crystals sprout from his shoulder blades, stretching out like deformed wings. “Thalia,” he says, grinning with lust. “Thalia, my love.”

* * *

She awoke gasping, hurling herself out of bed and into Cullen’s arms. “Thalia!” He grabbed her shoulders to steady her.

She was drenched in sweat, breathing hard. She put her hands on his neck so she could get a better look at him. His eyes were their usual hazel, no trace of red. She grabbed his collar, pushing her hand past the armor and undershirt. His skin felt smooth, the arc of his shoulder blade straight and strong. Shakily, she withdrew and curled up on the bed. “Why are you here?”

She’d spent the night alone, tossing and turning. She had no idea when she had actually fallen asleep, but it had been long after the fire in her hearth burnt down to embers.

“You never showed for the morning meeting with the war council,” Cullen said, slowly and deliberately. “After an hour I told the others I would come up and check on you.” He sat down beside her, the worry bright in his eyes. “Are you unwell?”

He brought the back of his palm to her brow. His hands ran cold, the opposite of Blackwall’s. She often had to take one in both of hers and rub the warmth back into it. They teased, but she knew it was one of the long-term effects of lyrium deprivation. His hands shook sometimes too, when the cravings were particularly bad.

“It’s nothing,” she mumbled, shivering under his touch.

“You don’t seem to have a fever.” His hand lowered protectively to her stomach, touching her through the thin fabric of her nightgown. “You’re not feeling ill in the mornings, are you? You — don’t think—?”

Her eyes widened. “Maker, no. I’m sure of that.”

They were being careful. Very careful. She’d gone straight to the herbalist when it became apparent the Templar Order hadn’t given robust training on the ins and outs of family planning. Those tonics were supplemented by a spell that was difficult to find in a book, but known by any mage worth her salt.

“Oh.” Cullen removed his hand, looking in turns relieved and disappointed. “Good. Er, not that I’m opposed to the idea, mind you. When the time is right.”

Thalia felt herself blushing. “That’s nice to know.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and raked fingers through her loose hair, her heart thudding guiltily. How could she dream such vile nonsense when Cullen sat beside her and spoke of wanting children? “I’m fine, I promise. I was just having a nightmare.”

“I see,” Cullen said, full of sympathy. He was no stranger to those. More than once she’d had to wake him in the night, to cease the thrashes and shouts. Sometimes his eyes would already be open, darting around at invisible monsters. “Would you like to talk about it?”

Thalia shook her head. “I’m just happy it wasn’t real.”

He shot her a lopsided grin. “That’s the upside to nightmares. They’re easily vanquished.” He studied the kaleidoscopic light shining in the stained glass windows and the designs they cut on the floor. “You’ve had an ordeal with this war, Thalia. It doesn’t surprise me it’s catching up to you.”

“It’s not just me,” she protested. “We’ve all been through the wringer.”

“Yes, but you most especially. You’ve paid the heaviest price.” He paused, his voice softening. “Please remember you don’t have to go through this alone.”

Her heart ached. He was so kind to her — a good man through and through. Could she really put stock in old rumors, whispered to her by a jealous rival?

“It can be easy to think might alone will keep you afloat,” Cullen added. “But I’ve never found that to be particularly effective.”

Thalia frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Ah— a number of things, I suppose.” He sighed. “With the lyrium, for instance. At first I thought that if I was strong enough, I could just stop, and that would be that. I never even planned to tell anyone. Cassandra found out, of course. I wasn’t very subtle, in hindsight.” He chuckled. “She let me know just how foolish I was being, not seeking a safety net. Someone to catch me if I fell.” He took her hands, threading his fingers through hers. “That’s the problem with being mortal. We all fall.”

Thalia smiled. The sentiment was heartfelt, if perhaps a bit quaint. She envied Cullen his faith sometimes, as much as she admired it. She remembered the time she had come across him alone in the small room off Skyhold’s garden, on one knee before the shrine of Andraste, praying for her safety. She wished she could join him in those unshakeable beliefs, but she had to settle for respecting them. He managed to keep faith in the Chant itself separate from the Chantry as an institution, something she’d never been able to wrap her head around.

“I’m not alone,” she said coyly. “Look who I’ve got right here.”

She thought that would amuse him, but his expression remained stern. “There’s more than one way to be isolated. You can be in the middle of a crowded room and still totally alone if you don’t let people in.”

Thalia bit her lip. “Are we still talking about the lyrium?”

“Not entirely.” Cullen hesitated. “I never did tell you why I was sent to Kirkwall, did I?”

“No,” Thalia said, her heart racing.

“It was a punishment, of sorts,” Cullen said softly.

She saw a flash of his dripping sword from her dream. “Cullen, you don’t have to tell me this.” This made her sound magnanimous, but in truth she wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear it, either.

“No, you were right the other day. I should be more straight with you. I was in a bad state back then. I had endured… quite a bit during my post at the Circle Tower in Ferelden. Instead of dealing with it in a direct manner, I allowed my feelings to fester. As a result, I— are you all right?”

She had twisted away from him. The matchstick children in her mind were humming the way red lyrium did if you got too close to it. What could she say? _If this is about the mage apprentices, Thom Rainier told me — it takes a child-killer to know one, apparently._ “I… I’m fine.”

He seemed to want to reach for her, but stopped himself. “Yes, well. I’ll spare you the details. It was a long time ago.” He cleared his throat. “I was so wrapped inside my own head I could barely tell what direction was up. Knight-Commander Greagoir transferred me to Kirkwall because he thought I was a danger. Perhaps I was, to myself. It took a few good years away to sort me out, and that was honestly only because Knight-Commander Meredith didn’t tolerate secrets in her ranks. She helped me… for a time.”

Thalia wasn’t sure what exactly he was trying to say to her. If it was a confession to a crime, it was a poor one. But it was an admission of _something_ — a story it still pained him to tell, all these years later. She couldn’t turn a jaundiced eye to that.

“I’m glad you had that help,” she said tentatively. “But… I thought Meredith turned on you. Went mad.”

“She did, but not until later. For years she was harsh but fair, I thought. She made sure I was on top of my duties, and not too lost in my own thoughts. She understood the dangers the Templars faced every day, and didn’t trivialize them. It helped a great deal. It wasn’t long before she named me Knight-Captain because I’d excelled under her tutelage.” Cullen sighed. “In hindsight, she treated mages on the whole too cruelly, and tolerated far too many fringe thinkers among the Order, which contributed to the instability between the Circle and the Templars. Now I wonder if she made me second-in-command not because I had earned the position, but because she knew she had my unwavering loyalty. Yet I still owe her for saving me.”

“You miss her,” Thalia realized.

“I miss who she was, yes. Not who she turned into. I might’ve stayed in Kirkwall, if not for what happened to her. Maker knows there was plenty of need. But I could never step onto the Gallows without seeing a reminder…” His voice trailed off, and he let out a self-deprecating laugh. “I fear I’ve strayed from my point. I don’t want you to think you can’t talk to me, dearest. About anything. I apologize for keeping a part of me closed off — as you can probably see, it’s still difficult to speak of these things. But if you have questions, I can try to answer them.”

Thalia pressed her lips together. The obvious inquiry danced on her tongue, yet she couldn’t give voice to it. What if it angered him, or he somehow knew it had come from Blackwall? She scrambled to think of what to ask to test the waters. “Is it true… there was someone in the Kirkwall Templars who wanted to make all the mages Tranquil?”

Cullen raised his eyebrows. “Ser Alrik? Who told you about him?”

He knew the man by name? Just how familiar had they been with each other? “Varric mentioned something. He didn’t know the specifics.”

“Well, no one in the Order liked Ser Alrik and his ideas, I can tell you that much. He was a vain, barbarous man who should have been relieved of his duties long before he started petitioning the Knight-Commander and Divine Justinia about his so-called ‘Tranquil Solution.’” Cullen’s mouth twisted sourly. “I told Meredith as such, more than once. She always claimed his strengths outweighed his weaknesses. Which, in hindsight, was patently absurd.”

“But what did you think? About his…” Thalia suppressed a shudder. “‘Tranquil Solution’?”

He stared at her like he couldn’t quite believe that she had to ask. “I thought it preposterous, of course. All mages in all of Thedas, given the Rite of Tranquility? The logistics alone would have been a nightmare, to say nothing of the cost. You’ve met the Tranquil; they can barely look after themselves. It would have turned the Templars into nothing but caretakers and nurses. It’s like taking a meat cleaver to a problem that requires a needle—”

“So you _do_ think there’s a problem,” Thalia cut in. “That requires a— a solution.”

He stifled a sigh. “In Kirkwall, there was. There’s no denying that.”

She gave him an incredulous look.

“You weren’t there, Thalia,” Cullen said pointedly. “It’s well-documented that in the last several years, the ratio of mages turning to blood magic and becoming abominations was much higher on average than in other Circles. The _why_ of it all will have to be a question for historians, but it’s the truth.”

“Dorian says it’s not blood magic that’s inherently dangerous, in and of itself,” Thalia protested.

“Dorian is from Tevinter. Of course he’d say that.”

Thalia knew Cullen thought Dorian too irreverent with his speech and too loose with his magic, but attacking him for his homeland felt like a step too far. “Well, _they’re_ not overrun with demons day in and day out.”

“To hear him tell it, they’re not, no.” Cullen held up his palms in a helpless gesture. “But they also practice slavery, so should we really be holding Tevinter up as a bastion of all that is right and good in the world?”

They were spiraling into another argument; she could feel it. Thalia stood, walking away from him to regain her equilibrium. The comments about Dorian chafed, but it was something about the casualness of Cullen’s tone that really set her blood to boiling.

“Please don’t be angry,” he implored. “I don’t mean all mages are prone to such things. I just can’t ignore what I saw happen with my own eyes.”

Thalia wrenched open the door of her wardrobe and began rummaging around for clothes. “You didn’t even mention what the cost to mages being made Tranquil en masse would be — just to your precious Templars.”

Cullen stared at her, mouth agape. “I thought that went without saying.”

“Well, it doesn’t.” She turned, a pair of trousers in hand. “You’ve never been threatened with it. Knowing that if you don’t do exactly what they say, they can take away everything that makes you who you are, and leave nothing behind but a soulless husk.” She gritted her teeth. “And we were supposed to be _grateful_ for their protection.”

Cullen stood, his eyes wide. “Is that what happened to you? In the Ostwick Circle?”

“Oh, they never said so outright. They never had to, but we all knew. Every so often some mage got too mouthy, and suddenly she was ‘possessed by a demon’ and had to be dealt with.” She tossed the trousers back inside the wardrobe. “It was always the female ones, too. Most of our Templars were men. What a coincidence, don’t you think?”

He reached her in a few swift strides. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “I’m so sorry, my love.”

“I’m glad they’re gone. Every single one.” She buried her face in his chest, which had once been covered with the same plate mail engraved with a burning sword. She couldn’t even picture him there, with the others. It seemed as impossible as her dream.

* * *

Thalia rescheduled the meeting she had missed for the afternoon, over Cullen’s insistence that she take the entire day off. It was embarrassing enough that she had overslept; leaning into the mistake made her seem weak, and that was the last thing she wanted right now.

Dressed in her usual cobalt blue high-collared doublet and beige trousers, she hurried to the war council room, making it a point to be early. As she passed, Josephine was still at her desk, hurriedly composing a letter to an Orlesian duke. She promised she would be there soon. _At least I won’t be the late one this time,_ Thalia thought.

As she reached the end of the corridor, her footsteps slowed. There was chatter behind the tall wooden door, loud and heated enough that it concerned her. One of the voices belonged to Cullen. It took her a moment to identify the accent of the other: the rich Nevarran tones of Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast.

“The time is not right to broach this subject,” Cullen insisted.

“With the Inquisitor, the time will never be right,” Cassandra replied, with a note of disgust. “We must do so now, before Vivienne departs for Orlais. She is not a woman given to delaying her plans for anyone. You told me you would soften the blow.”

Thalia leaned one hand on the door and brought her ear close to the wood. Her pulse quickened.

“I haven’t had the chance. She has been through so much, and is just starting to sort it all out in her head. I haven’t wanted to burden her with this on top of everything else.”

Cassandra scoffed. “Commander, I understand she is your paramour, but you _must_ do something to rein her in.”

“She has never seen reason when it came to the Mage-Templar question, and I don’t expect her to start now,” Cullen said curtly. “Just this morning she told me she’s glad all the Templars are gone.”

Thalia’s breath caught in her throat. Her fingers curled, nails digging into the lacquered wood of the door. The previous evening’s conversation with Blackwall swirled in her mind. _You’re wrong about him. And even if you weren’t — he’d never defy me._

_You sure about that, Inquisitor?_

Cassandra let out a sarcastic chortle. “This is what we get, for letting her side with the rebel mages. She has made it perfectly clear she thinks magic should have no regulations whatsoever. You and I both know we cannot let such a dangerous position stand. Her forays into Fade magic and dalliances with a Tevinter mage would have already branded her a heretic in normal circumstances. When I recruited you from Kirkwall, Commander, it was because I knew you were willing to put the greater good above all else. Will you be able to do so now, I wonder?”

“Please, Cassandra, I just need more _time_.”

Thalia pushed her way into the war room. Cullen leaned over the long wooden table, which was covered with a map of southern Thedas and pockmarked with pawns and daggers, the handiwork of their conquest across the continent. Cassandra stood a few feet away, her arms crossed. She was a tall, difficult woman, with a crown of close-cropped hair and a seemingly permanent scowl. Thalia felt like they’d never gotten over their initial frostiness toward each other. This had been complicated by a suspicion Thalia had long harbored: that Cassandra felt threatened by her. She’d taken the Inquisition in a different direction than Cassandra had planned, of that she was certain. Yet there was something else to it that Thalia had never consciously admitted to. The two of them snapped their heads up and exchanged a wary glance, and again the thought flickered in Thalia’s mind.

“By all means, don’t stop on my account,” she said, her voice cold as ice. “I believe you were discussing how to best _rein me in_?”

Cullen straightened, his face blanched white. “Inquisitor,” he said, and the attempt at formality only stoked her anger. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

“Oh, really?” Thalia said, looking from him to Cassandra. The Seeker’s dark eyes were hard and inscrutable, the opposite of the naked fear present in Cullen’s. “Because from where I stand it looks like treason.”

Cassandra let out an impatient sigh. “Really, Inquisitor, there is no need for such theatrics. I’ve been pressing Cullen on a delicate issue that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. He has been resistant, knowing your… politics will likely prevent you from considering all sides of the issue. I take full responsibility.”

“That’s not entirely accurate, Cassandra,” Cullen said, his hands dropping to his sword hilt, the way they did when he was trying to reason through a difficult problem. “I appreciate your trying to save face for me, but the truth is, I share your concerns.”

Thalia’s chest throbbed with pain. She hadn’t felt like this since arriving in Val Royeaux to see Blackwall standing at the gallows, announcing that he was the criminal whom the authorities sought. _There has to be some mistake_ , she thought then, as she did now.

She swallowed thickly. “And what concerns are those?”

Cassandra and Cullen shared another conspiratorial look. Cassandra gave an almost imperceptible nod, and Cullen cleared his throat. “If we are to create a peaceable future for all of Thedas, we must consider rebuilding institutions that have been destroyed in the midst of the battle against Corypheus. All of our most stalwart organizations are little more than ruins. We have lost the Grey Wardens, the Seekers of Truth, and… and with the Mage Circles abolished and the Templars decimated by the red lyrium scourge, we have nothing to hold us back from the brink, if the mages…” His voice faltered.

“Say it,” Thalia said softly.

“—Lose control, Inquisitor,” Cullen finished. He had a difficult time meeting her eyes.

Thalia let the silence hang, struggling to keep her breathing even.

“We’ve discussed this,” she said at last, barely above a whisper. “The mages will watch over their own. The College of Enchanters will see to it that any violators are duly punished. I’ve expressly promised Grand Enchanter Fiona all of this and more, in exchange for the mages’ support in the war.”

Cassandra shook her head angrily. “It is naive of you to think that will be enough. The mages need independent oversight and clear regulations on what types of magic are safe to practice.”

“And what is it you two want?” Thalia snapped. “To bring back the Circles?”

Another surreptitious glance passed between Cullen and Cassandra. Thalia wanted to scream.

“Vivienne is well-connected in Orlais,” Cullen said slowly. “She has already offered to put in a good word with the Chantry—”

Thalia let out a barking laugh.

“—To reform the Circles!” Cullen continued. “So that when they return, they won’t be prone to the corruption and exploitive practices of the past.”

“And who will be overseeing these Circles?” Thalia retorted. “Some ‘reformed’ Templars?”

She could see the hurt in his eyes. “We were not all so terrible, you know.”

“As far as I can tell, you’re the only one not prone to abusing power or lyrium— and even then, sometimes I wonder.”

Cullen flinched as if she’d struck him. The jab was cruel enough with her intended meaning — the accusations about Cullen’s long ago conduct at the Ferelden Circle looming large in her mind. The part about lyrium had slipped past her lips with nary a thought, and she could only see now how deeply it cut him. She rushed forward, shaking her head. “Cullen, I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant.”

Cassandra reared up, her nostrils flaring. “Yes, it was.” She hooked a protective arm around Cullen’s elbow. “How dare you, throwing into the Commander’s face everything he has sacrificed — for the Inquisition, and for you.”

Thalia stopped short, her eyes falling to the way Cassandra’s arm linked with Cullen’s. He didn’t hold her, but he didn’t pull away, either. Something slow and ugly twisted in Thalia’s stomach. “How long have you been planning this?”

“That is irrelevant,” Cassandra scoffed.

“It’s not,” Thalia shot back. “How long?”

When Cassandra didn’t answer, Thalia looked to Cullen, who was studying the floorboards, his complexion gone ashen. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

“Weeks? _Months_? Since the beginning?” Thalia demanded. “When you needed a Herald of Andraste to rally everyone to your cause, but it turned out she was some radical mage who supported the rebellion?”

“Thalia, please,” Cullen interjected, removing his arm from Cassandra’s at last. “That wasn’t the way of it at all.”

“It’s amazing, isn’t it, Cullen? What people will do and say to your face, when they’re scheming behind your back?”

At least he had the good sense not to respond to that.

“The Circles will remain abolished,” Thalia said, in the booming voice she’d perfected for judgments. “The Templars will not return. Mages will oversee their own. If I hear any more of this, I’ll have you both thrown in the dungeons. I’m told it’s far too empty down there.”

She turned and stormed from the room, running straight into Leliana and Josephine.

“Inquisitor?” Josephine asked. “What about the meeting?”

“I’ve cancelled it. Too many surprises for one day. Did you know about Cullen and Cassandra’s plot to force me into reopening the Mage Circles?”

Leliana and Josephine were both skilled performers, but their surprise seemed genuine enough, and she decided to take their denials at face value.

“I have put a swift end to that notion,” Thalia said. “Leliana, when I elevated you to the position of Divine, it was under the condition you would reform the Chantry.”

“That is correct,” Leliana said dutifully.

“May I have your word that these ‘reforms’ will never involve the return of the Circles or the Templars?”

“Of course, Inquisitor,” Leliana said, with one of her enigmatic almost-smiles.

“Good. Make sure the Chantry leadership in Orlais know it,” Thalia said. Her voice hardened. “And make sure Seeker Pentaghast and Commander Cullen know it as well.”

Josephine and Leliana exchanged a glance. “Right away, Inquisitor,” Josephine replied.

“Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I wish not to be disturbed for the rest of the day.”

Thalia breezed away, head held high. As she walked, her hands shook. Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside her, which she found difficult to stifle. _Is my heart so big now, Blackwall?_

It was that thought which carried her down into Skyhold’s sub-level, bypassing the Main Hall so that no one might catch her, out through the kitchens and into the lower courtyard. The stables stood before her, glowing in the orange light of the afternoon sun. She had no idea what Blackwall might think — whether he would praise her for asserting authority or chastise her for reprimanding valuable advisors — but it was him she wanted to tell, his opinion she wanted to hear.

She broke into a run. Blackwall intended to leave today, but he had never told her when. _Please let him still be here._ Envy seized her; he could walk away from all of this, but he only had that ability because of her. She pictured him in the barn as she approached, saddling up his new mount. What would he do if she seized his horse’s reins and insisted he bring her along? She imagined him giving her a long look with his deep grey eyes and motioning with his head. _Climb up quick, milady, and we’ll be away before anyone realizes we’re gone._

Thalia crossed the threshold into the barn, breathing hard. The cook fire that had once stood there was nothing but a pile of cold ashes. The bedroll, the supplies, the black mare — all gone. The only trace of him was the mural of the bear on the wall, painted by Solas, meant to represent something about Blackwall only the mysterious elf knew. He had vanished weeks ago also, never to be seen again.

Thalia sank to her knees in the straw. She leaned over, a sob gripping her from the inside out, so that it tore from her throat in a vicious keen. She cried, not just over Blackwall’s absence, but something larger: a dark looming void that seemed to yawn out before her, shadowing all her days to come.

“Inquisition,” said a gruff voice beside her.

Thalia looked up, startled. Dennet stood nearby, his arms crossed. She had rarely seen him with anything but a frown on his face, but today his expression seemed somehow softer.

“Master Dennet, I’m sorry,” she mumbled, drawing her hands down her wet face, mortified that he should see her like this. “I’m sorry, I just…”

“He left this morning,” Dennet said, as if she hadn’t spoken at all. “Probably past Haven by now, but before the Frostback crossroads. If I gave you my fastest courser, you might be able to catch him.”

Thalia blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“Past the crossroads, there’s dozens of tiny roads leading to dozens of tiny villages. Who knows which one a man might take?”

“I… I can’t just leave,” Thalia said, pushing the fantasy she’d just entertained out of her mind. “I have too many responsibilities.”

Dennet squinted at her. “Do you love him or not?”

His bluntness felt like a sucker punch. “It’s… complicated.”

Dennet scoffed. “Well, he loves you, that’s as plain as day. Not only because you freed him, but for that too.”

Thalia shook her head. “You’re wrong. He hates me for doing that.”

“The young are so foolish.” Dennet sighed. “It ain’t you he hates. It’s himself. Freeing him means he’s got to be the good man you see in him. That’s harder than sliding back down in the muck with the other monsters.”

She stared up at Dennet in awe. He had always seemed like a simple, pragmatic person. She realized she hadn’t given him much thought since recruiting him from the Hinterlands months ago. Yet it was Dennet she always saw after her conversations with Blackwall, throwing him a smile and acting as if she was there to see the horses. While the rest of the hold gossiped about her and Cullen, Dennet must have been watching, but never said a word.

“Between you and me, that’s one of the best things you ever did.” Dennet leaned against a wooden beam. “Showing mercy to a man like him.”

Thalia let out a laugh that threatened to turn into another sob. “Nothing I’ve done has ever made me so unpopular.”

Dennet smirked and offered her a hand up. “That’s how you know it was right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever since playing DA2, I’ve been SO curious about Cullen’s relationship with Knight-Commander Meredith. I’ve made a small attempt here to flesh it out, and offer an explanation of why he stood by her for so long, even as the situation in Kirkwall deteriorated around him. 
> 
> Also, I adore Cassandra, but she and Thalia never really got along in my play through. Not only did I play Thalia as explicitly anti-Chantry, I could never shake the feeling she was sort of an interloper into Cassandra and Cullen’s existing professional (and maybe personal?) relationship. 
> 
> MVP of the chapter goes to Dennet though, a guy I always wished I had more dialogue options with. :)


	4. Breaking Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen hits a snag.

“Inquisitor?” came the voice of Scout Harding. “We have a… situation.”

Thalia stood with Dorian in the rotunda below the rookery, going through the tomes and scraps of paper Solas had left behind, searching for a clue about where the elven mage had gone. It was a task Thalia had been putting off, for no reason she could rightly name. Perhaps it was the room itself she had been avoiding: the mural Solas had painted was done in tones of angry red, the figures and landscapes that pressed down from all sides looming chaotic and indecipherable. When she’d mentioned it to Dorian, he had quipped, “Yes, it does seem our good friend Solas was trying to exorcise a few demons of his own. And now we’re the ones who will be burdened with looking upon it for all time. Is this really what passes for art in the South?”

Thalia was grateful to have a distraction from the room and its unsettling implications, but spying Harding in the doorway gave her no comfort. The scout’s face was pale beneath her many freckles.

Thalia put down a crumpled parchment covered with runes and formulas written in Solas’s archaic-looking penmanship. “What is it?”

Harding opened her mouth, but hesitated, her gaze shifting to Dorian. “Perhaps we should speak in private, your grace.”

Thalia had not thought Harding would have anything against Dorian, but a lot of people were surprising her these days. “I trust Dorian. You should too.”

“Oh, it’s not that, Inquisitor,” Harding said, fidgeting. “My apologies, Ser Pavus, but the nature of the situation is delicate, and the parties involved have asked for secrecy.”

“Think nothing of it, my friend,” Dorian assured Harding. He patted Thalia on the shoulder. “It’s all right. I’ll just take these madman’s scribblings upstairs so that I can study them out of the evil eye of this mural. You can find me there when you’re finished.”

Thalia thanked him with a grateful smile and waited until his footsteps retreated up the stone staircase. Then she crossed the space to Harding and lowered her voice. “Yes?”

Harding spoke in a similarly hushed tone. “It’s the Commander, Inquisitor.”

A jolt went through Thalia. The last few days between her and Cullen had been difficult. He had apologized to her half a hundred times, claiming that he never intended to make demands of her in the disrespectful way Cassandra had done. Thalia found his excuses thin, and the underlying cause troubling: he never acquiesced to the idea that the Mage Circles should remain a thing of the past, and that bringing back the Templars would be unnecessary. He had more loyalty to his former order than she’d thought, and it troubled her.

Thalia narrowed her eyes. “What does he want?” Now instead of having the courage to confront her directly, he was sending Harding to play middleman?

“He—” Harding started, then stopped up short. She licked her lips and tried again. “Well, he asked for you, Inquisitor. But that’s not really the issue.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s sort of— locked himself in the armory,” Harding said, all in one breath. “There was an incident, with a straight razor—”

Thalia’s heart leapt into her throat. “Is he hurt?”

“No! I mean, at least I don’t think so. Not yet.” Harding’s voice shook. “I’m a little sketchy on the details. I think he was intending to have a shave. A barber comes up from Haven every so often to service the soldiers. But the Commander saw the razor and got— confused, I think.”

Paranoia was a telltale sign, he had told her, that he was slipping. But that didn’t make any sense. Cullen had been so steady lately. _Am I dreaming again? Is this another nightmare?_ “Who’s got the razor now?”

“H-he does,” Harding said. “I guess he must have grabbed it.”

In the armory, no less. The razor might be the least of their worries, but it could easily be drawn across the wrists or the throat, far more quickly than a sword. Thalia fought down a wave of nausea. “Is anyone in there with him?”

Harding shook her head. “The men fled before he barred the door.”

“Let’s go.” Thalia broke into a sprint for the Main Hall, forgetting the effort it would take for Harding to keep up. She did so admirably, regardless. “How many people saw this?”

“Just a few,” Harding said. “The barber, the armorer, and a couple soldiers who were in there outfitting their swords. I made certain they don’t intend to tell anyone.”

“Thank you.” Harding was smart and thought quickly on her feet. That was one of the reasons why Thalia liked her so much. Left unchecked, word that the Commander was caught in a fit of madness would spread through the ranks like wildfire. “Where’s Cassandra?” As loath as Thalia was to admit it, Cassandra was the only other person she could think of who might be able to handle a situation like this.

“In the field, Inquisitor. She left two days ago.”

Eager to get away from an Inquisitor who threatened to imprison her, no doubt. Thalia had been taught a lady never cursed aloud, but it was all she could do not to hurl obscenities across the courtyard. Outside the armory stood the blacksmith, wringing his hands, and an older man she did not recognize, pacing. The barber, Thalia presumed. He whirled on her and Harding as they approached.

“Never in all my years have I seen something like this. I never wanted to hurt the lad! _He’s_ the one who asked me to do it, said he needs to be clean-shaven to meet his beau’s family.”

“It’s not your fault, ser,” Thalia said. “The Commander has been under a lot of pressure lately.” _From me. Oh, Maker, did I push him to this?_

Harding swiftly but politely waved the barber and a few other stragglers away from the building. “Thalia,” she said when they were alone, “Cullen is a good man. I couldn’t have asked for a better commanding officer. I-I know he wouldn’t intentionally do anything like this. This… isn’t really him, is it?”

“It isn’t,” Thalia said, taking a deep breath.

Harding bit her lip. “How long since he last had a dose?”

Thalia looked down at her. Not much got past Harding. “Months. Maybe close to a year.”

“Wow,” Harding said softly. “I thought people didn’t last that long.”

Thalia swallowed hard. “Most don’t.”

“I know where the lyrium stores are kept,” Harding said. “I could go get—”

“No,” Thalia cut in. “That isn’t what he wants. He would rather be removed from command.”

Harding’s bright green eyes went wide. “Is… is that what you’re going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Thalia said. She’d never believed it would be necessary. “I’ll have to talk to him first.”

“Right.” Harding nodded. “Well, I’ll bring you some backup.”

“He won’t hurt me.” Even as she said it, she saw the Cullen from her dream, standing over the bodies of the mage children.

“Of course. But just in case he needs to be — subdued. He’s a big man.”

Thalia nearly said she could defend herself, but thought better of it. Being forced to strike Cullen with magic would probably only make matters worse, and he _was_ a big man. Thinking of him as dangerous made her heartsick. “All right. If you need to come in, I’ll give you a signal.”

Harding gave her a long look. “With all due respect, Inquisitor, how long should we wait before we assume you’re unable to give one?”

Thalia took a deep breath. Harding was a little _too_ pragmatic sometimes. “Use your best judgment. But no one hurts him.”

“Got it. Big burly soldiers to do the tackling. Gently.” Harding winced. “Good luck.”

Thalia squared her shoulders and faced the armory door, her heart pounding. Guilt coursed through her, as well — everything else between her and Cullen felt like a petty squabble now. How could she have been so arbitrarily cruel? She thought of the hurt in his eyes when she had all but called him a lyrium fiend. He carried so much more than he revealed to most people, even her. Had her prodding upset his already precarious balance?

She knocked on the door and tried to find her voice. “Cullen? It’s me. A-are you in there?”

No answer. Her stomach clenched. She tried the door, but it held fast.

“Cullen?” she tried again, louder this time. “Please. Can you let me in? I just want to talk.”

She pressed her ear to the door. She thought she heard some movement within, and turned to squint through the narrow window. She caught a glimpse of fur-lined collar, and one feverish hazel eye before darkness engulfed them both.

“Go round the other side,” came his voice, sounding gruff and far away.

Thalia swallowed hard. She walked to the side entrance, nestled under a copse of trees. The scent of pine needles tickled her nose as she knocked again. “I’m here.” She glanced behind her, at the empty side yard. “I’m alone.”

Seconds passed. “It’s unlocked. When you enter, you’re to do exactly as I say.”

Thalia pulled on the iron ring until the door gave way enough for her to slip inside. The armory was much darker than the brilliance of the yard, causing her temporary blindness as she grew used to the stone walls and orange glow from the forges. She couldn’t see Cullen at all.

“Close the door. Hands where I can see them.”

She pulled shut the door and held up her palms, the anchor spitting tiny sparks but otherwise providing no illumination. Her breath had grown shallow with fear. Cullen’s voice was so foreign to her, yet the tone still sounded practiced, akin to the one he used when commanding soldiers in battle. _No. It must be the one he used when tracking down apostate mages._

Thalia licked her lips. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

A shadow slid behind her, slamming a heavy beam down to bar the door. “That’s what they usually say, shortly before they use blood magic,” he said softly, close to her ear.

She didn’t dare move. He hovered close; she could feel his breath on her neck. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the dull glint of a blade. _He won’t hurt me_. She had to believe that. “Cullen, do you know where we are?”

“And why would that matter?”

“Because I want you to remember. We’re in Skyhold, with the Inquisition. Do you remember that?”

She could feel him hesitate, but only for a moment. “I _don’t_ remember giving you leave to talk. I’m the one asking the questions, not you.”

_Sometimes I think I’m back there_ , he had said once, although he’d never elaborated on where _there_ was. She tried to sound meek. “I’m sorry… Knight-Captain?”

“That’s better,” he said, his tone softening. “Here, you’re given the respect you earn.”

Now he really did sound like a Templar. At least she was seeing the shape of his delusion, although she worried that feeding it would only drive him farther from reality. But if countering it openly made him angry, what were her options?

He put a hand on her shoulder, making her flinch. “It’s all right,” he said, as kindly as the man she knew. “Cooperate and all will be fine.”

He steered her over to a table and chairs, pulling one out for her to sit. She sank down heavily, burying her face in her hands and trying to catch her breath. Cullen stayed standing, pacing back and forth in front of her. In the light from the window, she could see him better. His face glistened with sweat, and his face had a pallor to it, contrasting with the dark crescents under his eyes. The blade he held was indeed a straight razor, although it was clean. He himself seemed unhurt — physically, at least. His movements betrayed a frenetic desperation.

“Lady Thalia Trevelyan, was it?” he said, after a minute. “Escaped from the Ostwick Circle?”

_Escaped?_ Oh, how she’d wished, a thousand times or more. The fantasies she’d had, about climbing out of the Tower on a rope made of bedsheets, stealing away to one of the nearby city-states: Markham, to see the tourney where a young Blackwall had won the melee, or Kirkwall, where the Hightown market boasted exotics from half the world over. What a different meeting that would have been, if she’d stumbled over him in his Templar armor while trying to purchase some Rivaini spices.

The truth was she’d been a coward back then. She’d kept all her rebellious thoughts locked away so that no one suspected. So quiet and unassuming, even the worst of the Templars didn’t pay her much mind. It was easier to get a rise out of the other mages, not her, who barely made eye contact and mumbled only the politest of greetings. She’d learned early on that the closer she acted to the Tranquil, the less of a threat she posed. It served her well, and fooled everyone, even the First Enchanter. When he summoned her to his office to tell her she’d been selected to represent the Ostwick Circle at the Conclave, she’d almost told him there had to be some mistake.

Then came the Divine, and the Fade, and freedom. She had never looked back.

“How did you know?” she asked.

Cullen motioned toward her face. “The tattoo does its work. I would call the practice intrusive and unnecessary, but it does make our job easier.”

Startled, Thalia’s fingers crept to her cheekbone, where the tattoo circled her eye. _He didn’t know that before, not until I told him._ So he wasn’t completely lost in a memory. If she introduced enough contradictory information, could she snap him out of it?

“Oh, really?” she asked carefully. “Who told you about that?”

Cullen hesitated. His eyes, already glittery, clouded with confusion. “A woman I met once, in… you know, I can’t quite recall where.” He shook his head, wiped the perspiration off his brow. “Never mind. If you answer my questions satisfactorily, you’ll be treated well until such time when you can be returned to Ostwick. Who harbored you when you arrived in the city?”

Thalia only knew three people who had lived in Kirkwall, and one was in the room with her. “Nobody.”

He shot her an incredulous look. “You lie poorly, Lady Trevelyan.”

“I looked for Varric Tethras,” she said, thinking quickly. “I heard he and his friend Hawke helped apostates. But Varric had left town. With the Inquisition.”

Cullen’s brow furrowed. “The Inquisition? No, that doesn’t make sense. There hasn’t been an Inquisition in a thousand—” He cut himself off with a groan, doubling over in pain.

“Cullen,” Thalia cried, jumping to her feet. Without thinking, she approached him.

“Stay back,” he snarled, waving the straight razor in front of her face. “Sit down. _Now_.”

She sat. Cullen leaned against the wall and tried to recover, his hands shaking violently. _He’ll hurt himself soon, if I don’t do something._ “Knight-Captain? Are you all right?”

“It’s nothing,” he mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut. “The lyrium shipment is late. Pirates off the coast, Knight-Commander Meredith said. Just a few more days.” His eyes opened again, but they darted around like a blind man’s. “Everything is so _blue_.”

“Maybe you should rest,” Thalia suggested. “Here, come sit by me.”

He shook his head. “I shouldn’t.”

Thalia gave him a lopsided grin. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Cullen let out a weak laugh. “Well, I’m already omitting this from the report, so I suppose a few minutes won’t hurt.”

He nearly collapsed into the chair beside her. He put his head down on the table, clutching the razor in one hand. She needed to get that away from him. He still wore his sword belt, too, and both doors were barred. None of this was going as she’d hoped.

Her fingers crept to the nape of his neck and into his hair, the way she had done many times before. Cullen jerked his head upward. “Wha—? No, no, that wouldn’t be appropriate…” He trailed off when his eyes met hers.

“Just a few minutes,” Thalia said, smiling.

He blinked, then lowered his head again so that she could keep massaging his scalp. “Are you sure we haven’t met before?” he murmured, between small noises of soothed pleasure.

“Maybe we have,” Thalia said softly. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to get him to fall asleep. “Have you ever been to Ostwick?”

“Never. Just Ferelden and Kirkwall. Have you ever been to Ferelden?”

She wanted to say yes, but Thalia Trevelyan of the Circle had never been anywhere. “Only Ostwick, I’m afraid.”

“Right. Well, it’s nicer than people say. Maybe one day I could…” He chuckled, opening one eye to gaze up at her. “I must be going mad. I almost said maybe one day I could show you around.”

“What’s so mad about that?” Thalia asked.

“It’s just… Maker. A Templar and a mage…”

“You don’t think it could be possible?” she asked, sadness gripping her heart.

“Unnatural, I’ve heard it called. And dangerous. We’re supposed to guard and protect you, even from yourselves. How can we do that if we’re…” He swallowed, and shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

That hurt more than she wanted to admit, that there’d been a time when he would have written her off wholesale just for being who she was. “Then it’s a good thing it’s only a few minutes. Close your eyes.”

He did. Thalia played with his hair and hummed a half-forgotten lullaby, straining to see out the window as she did. The angle was no good; she could only see a patch of grass and sky. She could only hope Harding was out there, waiting patiently.

A few minutes passed, and Cullen seemed to doze. While she kept one hand on the nape of his neck, she used the other to inch closer to the fist closed around the razor.

“You know,” he said, startling her, “there was someone once. A mage, when I was at the Ferelden Circle.”

“Oh?” Thalia said, dropping her wandering hand to her side.

“She was special. I think I… yes, I think I did— ah, have feelings for her.”

Thalia had never heard of any other women in Cullen’s life, mage or no. She couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth, or this was another figment of his imagination. “Really? Where is she now?”

He opened his eyes, and to her shock they were wet. “She… died. I couldn’t save her from Uldred. I couldn’t save any of them— I—”

He was crying now, sudden and forceful. Thalia put her arms around him, pulling his head to her chest. He embraced her, abandoning the razor, which she swept off the table before he could notice. “It’s all right,” she whispered, kissing the top of his head. “It’s all right.”

“I should be taking it,” he pleaded. “If I don’t, all I have is _this_. I need it. Can you get me some? Please, Thalia, please, just a little, just this once…”

She shook her head again and again, and realized she was crying too. “You don’t need it, Cullen. You don’t need it. You’re not that person anymore, remember? Please remember. Remember atop the battlements at Adamant? And— and when you saved me from the snow after Haven. And all the war councils, and our games of chess, and when you took me to the lake. You didn’t need it then, and you don’t need it now.”

They stayed that way for awhile, and would have done so for untold hours more if there hadn’t been a banging at the barred door. “Boss? Inquisitor?” came the gravely voice of Iron Bull. “Commander Cullen? Time to open up now.”

She had waited too long. Big burly soldiers, Harding had said, and she had found the burliest. The only one who could hold a candle to Iron Bull was Blackwall, and he was days gone.

Cullen jerked away from her, eyes wild. He saw the razor missing, and gritted his teeth. “You tricked me.”

“Cullen, wait—”

He launched to his feet, kicking viciously at her chair. It toppled, and Thalia hit the wooden boards hard, the air driven from her lungs. She lay facedown, gasping for breath. Above her came the sounds of a sword drawn from its sheath, a door battered by heavy fists, and then something heavier still. She struggled to roll over and sit up. When she did, the soft part of her throat came into contact with the edge of a blade.

She froze. Cullen stood above her, chest heaving. Even as shaky as he was, he managed to hold the sword steady. He was nothing if not disciplined. “Well? What are you waiting for? Strike me with your magic.”

“Cullen,” she whispered. Behind him, the top of an axe and daylight poked through the door. “I don’t want to hurt you. And you don’t want to hurt me.”

“You don’t know what I want,” Cullen growled. The sharpness of his sword punctuated each word. “There was a time when I would have torn you limb from limb.”

The door broke. Everything became disjointed: a rush of purple skin and horns; Cullen’s sword clattering to the ground; someone grabbing her and pulling her to her feet; holding the splintered doorframe for dear life while screams and sobs filled her ears. It took minutes to realize the screams were Cullen and the sobs were her own, and the figure by her side, rubbing her back, was Krem.

She tried to look over his shoulder, even as he blocked her view. “What’s going on? Cullen—?”

“Better if you don’t look, Inquisitor,” Krem said. “They won’t hurt him.”

Thalia caught a glimpse of Iron Bull and the Chargers huddled in a circle on the floor, along with Harding and a surgeon from the medical tents. The surgeon pulled a tonic out of her bag and spoke with surprising calm over the shouts. “Hold his arms, please — Commander, I’m giving you something to help you sleep. Just a couple swallows and you’ll wake up feeling better, I promise.”

Iron Bull’s huge biceps tightened and the Chargers all scrambled for purchase as Cullen fought. “No, _no._ Unhand me at once, I—” He retched and went into a coughing fit.

Thalia clamped her hands over her mouth and turned away. Krem had been right; she didn’t want to see this. She stared out into Skyhold’s yard, at the jagged snowy mountains, at the painfully blue sky.

At long last, Cullen quieted. The Chargers stood, awaiting further instructions. Slowly, the surgeon approached Thalia, lowering her voice. “He’ll be out for a few hours. I wish I could do more for lyrium sickness, but at least the sleeping draught quiets the worst of the episodes.” She paused. “You’ll want him in a secure place when he wakes, just in case.”

Thalia nodded without really hearing the words.

Harding appeared beside her next. The scout’s face had never looked so pale. “Inquisitor? Where should we put— I mean, where should we move him? We can’t just leave him on the floor.”

“His quarters,” Thalia whispered. “Have him taken to his quarters.”

Harding hesitated. “Inquisitor, I don’t mean to disobey an order, but are the Commander’s quarters the— ah, safest place for him right now?”

Thalia thought of the ladder in the floor, and the hole in the roof he had never gotten around to fixing. It was perhaps one of the least secure places in all of Skyhold, not to mention one of the most public.

“I don’t know what to do,” Thalia confessed, afraid she might cry again.

Harding chewed her lip. “Might I make a suggestion?”

Thalia looked down at her.

“I’m not sure you’re gonna like it,” Harding said, grimacing.

Thalia didn’t like any of this, so that was hardly a factor. “Go on.”

“The best place — where the Commander could be watched to make sure he’s not harmed… might be the— the dungeons, Inquisitor.”

Thalia closed her eyes. She saw the blade at her throat, and the accusatory gaze behind it. _I’m told it’s far too empty down there,_ she had told him _._ She should never have made a threat like that, not unless she’d been prepared to carry it out. Blackwall would have told her that, if he’d been here. If she hadn’t driven him away.

“Inquisitor?”

Thalia opened her eyes. “Do it.” The words didn’t seem like hers; the voice sounded calm and strong, coming from somewhere outside of her. “The Commander is hereby relieved of his duties.”

Harding nodded. “Right away, your grace.”

The scout turned to address the Chargers. Thalia wandered out into the long rays of Skyhold’s fading afternoon, waiting to feel something again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe my original intent for this chapter was for it to be sexy? Instead it came out like this. I’m a monster.


End file.
